


Sing Me Sweet

by daysofinspiration



Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, F/F, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-16
Updated: 2012-06-25
Packaged: 2018-10-28 20:52:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 45,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10839237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daysofinspiration/pseuds/daysofinspiration
Summary: The emptiness inside my chest, preventing me from being happy, isn’t because I chose to forget. It’s because I can’t remember.





	1. Undressed

**Author's Note:**

> The story will mainly be from Brittany’s point of view, with a few chapters set aside later on from other character’s perspectives.

“… and she said to me, ‘No, Drew, I wasn’t responsible for those files. And besides, I don’t do things half-assed.’”

“She said that to you?”

The man sitting across the lunch table from me nods, his dark eyes alight with a mixture of irritation and excitement as he recounts his story. “She did. And Davis and I checked the records; you know when those files went missing? Early April. You know when she switched departments and I took over her job? Late May. She lost those damn files. Stupid cow.” His hand pounds down on the table, making me jump a little.

“Drew-” I try to reason.

“No, seriously B,” he isn’t giving in with this, “She’s a complete psychopath. The woman is like a dragon or something, walking around acting like she owns the place.”

“But,” I say, lifting the coffee cup to my lips and taking a sip, “Dragons can be fun.”

“She’s a dragon with teeth and claws,” Drew says flatly, eyes narrowed at me. “ _Evil_.”

“Oh, well.” A beat, and then, “Do some dragons not have teeth or claws? That’d be kind of weird. Wouldn’t that make them… snakes?” I’m trying to lighten the mood, to distract him from the aggravation stewing inside him. But my question is still an honest one; wouldn’t a dragon without claws be a snake?”

“You aren’t helping,” Drew accuses, letting out a puff of air with a small smile. My attempt worked. “You’re supposed to be sitting here being the supportive friend while I gripe about work.”

I frown, “I thought you liked it here.”

Drew Adams had been hired only a year ago, and the two of us hit it off pretty fantastically from the get-go. He’s a college graduate that had been scooped up and offered a position at this massive place even before his diploma was in his hand. Brilliantly smart, and almost as good at his job as I am at mine.

Dark, shaggy hair covers his head. He has a boyish face, with round cheekbones, and expressive blue eyes. Slim, he wasn’t the workout type, but not lanky and uncoordinated. Drew was anything but uncoordinated. Neurotic sometimes, his workspace was always spotless, but he was charming and charismatic. He was easy enough to get along with, and though brilliant, acted like a child pretty often.

Essentially? He was the kind of guy who, when a girl walked past him on the street, their gaze lingered just a little too long to be casual observation.

The downside to that, however, was that he was not at all interested in female attention.

“I do,” he insists, “I just hate Daniels. She’s a monster. The old bat needs to just retire and go visit those grandchildren in Greece she brags about non-stop.” He’s getting riled up again, I can see it. When he’s like this, sometimes it’s best to just let him run his course. Trying to stop Drew when he wants to rant is like trying to stop a freight train at full force with one hand. Difficult.

“I don’t even work in her department,” he continues, “And she talks my damn ears off. I’ve come home with blood stains on my shirt; she makes my ears bleed whenever she talks to me.” He ends his words in a huff, glaring ahead of him as if the woman was right there and could see his dislike for her.

Drew gets along well with most people. He was just that guy. He didn’t even have to know your name to strike up a conversation with you; he felt more like an old friend than a stranger. But his only real downfall was that he was very organised and neat with his workspace. Accusing him of misfiling something down in the records room? A big no-no.

Me on the other hand, though I do my work with care and precision, my workplace is a bit of a disaster sometimes. It’s not so bad that there are plates of food or garbage everywhere, I don’t have mountains of junk all over the place and I can clearly see the floor. It’s more just that I am very good at getting distracted and moving on to something else before I’ve finished a task. Organised chaos.

Drew picks at the edge of his sandwich for a moment before lifting it up and taking a bite. He’s agitated; Drew really hates Daniels. And they don’t even work together. He had taken over her job when she switched departments.

I spear a piece of my own lunch, a pasta salad that could be a little more flavourful, but not all that bad. That’s generally how I’d describe most of the food options here; could be better, but not that bad. “So…” I try to change the subject, but spoke before I thought of something to talk about besides work.

Drew switches gear easily enough, however, perking right up. “ _So_ ,” he says, dragging the word out. “It’s early February.”

I flash a smile, fingers picking with the rim of my coffee cup, “I know what day it is, thanks.”

“Valentine’s Day is coming up.” Drew bats his dark eyelashes ridiculously at me, “Come on B, spill. You got any special plans?”

I think for a moment before answering, “I want to have the tests run for that new idea Davis was-”

“Not what I meant by plans, B,” Drew’s grin is bright and evil; I know I’m not getting out of this conversation easily. “Come on, are you seeing anyone for Valentines? Maybe going to dinner? A movie? A _romantic_ _evening_ in the park under the stars?”

I begin squirm in my seat, growing uncomfortable, “No, Drew, no plans.”

“Come on,” he presses. Drew is used to getting his way. Usually, he just flashes that pretty boy smile and things happen. I try my hardest to resist.

“Please stop.”

Drew shakes his head. Then he casts a quick glance around the cafeteria, making sure no one is listening before continuing. But it’s safe; we had a late lunch today. Almost no one is left in the cafeteria with us, and no one is close enough to be listening to our conversation. “You know who is looking _fine_ these days?” he asks, dragging out the word and smirking. “Grant Duncan.”

I cringe, because please no, not this again. I have been through this with him so many times now. “We’ve been through this, Drew. No.”

“What? What’s so wrong with him? The man is a good-looking piece of merchandise, B. And you know he’s got a thing for you.”

“I know. I don’t enjoy it. He’s had a thing for me for ages,” I grimace.

“I’ve heard the story. The man has been trying to woo you the whole time you’ve been working here. He finds you, takes you under his wing, and gets you a position here. But you turn a blind eye to his advances. But B; the man is _enthralled._ ”

“I’m aware of that, thank you. Romanticising the story doesn’t help, I’m still not interested.”

“Why? B, you’re a sweet, sweet girl. You’ve got an awesome body, the most stunning blue eyes I’ve ever seen, pretty gold locks, and the brains to make it in this place. You’re the package deal. But if you keep turning guys down – I heard through the grapevine that Roger in engineering asked you out and you turned him down on the spot.”

“I did not turn him down on the spot,” I argue. “We went out to dinner and I declined a second date.”

“Harsh.”

I ignore him.

“Anyway,” he continues his original though, “If you keep turning guys down, especially guys like Grant, well…”

“Well?” I prompt him, even though I really don’t want to hear it.

“Well… time’s a ticking. And Grant is _interested_ in you. Grant. Not just some Joe Random you work with or who recognizes you from the deli across from your apartment. Grant Duncan. That’s not a guy you turn down when he’s got his eyes on you.”

“Grant is bordering on stalking me, actually,” I say casually, drumming my fingers against the coffee cup.

Drew makes a disapproving noise before taking another bite of his sandwich. A blob of mayonnaise dribbles out and lands on his shirt. I cringe, but Drew doesn’t notice, he keeps chewing and shaking his head sadly at me.

It will stain, the mayo. If it were me, I’d want to know there was a stain on my shirt.

Taking another bite of my lunch I decided not to tell him. As punishment for bringing up the whole Grant thing, I’ll just let it sit there and see how long it takes for him to notice. He might go the whole day and people will point and laugh and I can take pride in knowing I could have told him but didn’t.

He did it to me two weeks ago when there was a leaf in my hair. He let me get through half the day without telling me. And whenever anyone asked him why I had a leaf in my hair he told them I was actually a superhero and had just finished saving a baby from a burning car.

That’s the kind of relationship we have. It’s why we get along so well. We both act like kids most of the time.

Except right now, when he is still looking at me disapprovingly.

“He is not stalking you,” he tisks.

“He’s always there. I’m at my office, minding my own business, and I look up and he’s there. I’m running a test, he’s there. There’s a single flower left on my desk every few months; no note, but I know it’s from him. He’ll just randomly show up with coffee for me. Did I ask for coffee? Nope. Kinda creepy, Drew. And he doesn’t talk. He just watches. Like I’m a horse that he wants to buy.”

Drew barks out a laugh, “The man is gorgeous though, what’s a few personality flaws here or there?”

I roll my eyes, because that wasn’t the argument. Yes, Grant is good-looking. He’s tall, well-built and with high cheek bones. Dirty-blonde slicked back hair. And piercing grey eyes. Piercing grey eyes that just focus on me and don’t leave me alone. His face has a professional-ness to it; he looks like the kind of man who would fit in working in a cutthroat, corporate high-rise.

And he has this way about him, this confident, arrogant, smug way he goes about his day. He acts like everyone should drop at his feet, like he could literally own anything he desired, like people should bow down before him simply because he existed. He acts like he owns the place. Which…

“He’s the boss’s son.”

“Hey, all the more reason to get on that. Have you seen this place? You’d be rolling in money if you married him.”

“Married! Oh my God, Drew, just stop it already.”

“I’m just placing the possibility on the table,” Drew insists, holding his hands up in defence. “But think about it. Yeah, daddy owns the company. But he’s working here because he’s good at what he does, not because daddy hired him when no one else would. Man’s pretty brilliant. Not as much as you, mind you. Or even as much as me, and I may as well be a child prodigy. But he’s still pretty clever. If you two had children they’d be adorable _and_ smart.”

I cringe. And then gag, trying very hard to keep my lunch down. I only just ate it, I don’t need to see it again. This whole topic is making me uncomfortable. I squirm around in my seat, as if trying to avoid the words Drew says, but it doesn’t work.

“If you like him so much, why don’t _you_ ask him out for Valentine’s?” That would solve so, so many problems.

“I would love to, but that man is straighter than a cement pole. Plus, Grant? Hooked on you and you alone. He all but hand-picked you to work here, did he not?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer, simply ploughs on ahead. “And when you didn’t swoon and drop to his feet, it became like a game, a mission of perusal. All to win you over.” He looks kind of dreamy near the end. It makes me even more uncomfortable.

I finger the edge of my napkin, trying not to stare at the splotch of mayo on his shirt. I need to convince Drew that I have absolutely no interest in Grant, I never had and never will; his perusal just makes me pull away more. “Not only does he make me uncomfortable with how focused his is on my attention, but when you put it like that Drew? It sounds pretty creepy. He was sweet at first, when they had just hired me, but…” I shake my head, “I’m not interested in him like that.”

Drew rolls his eyes, “Grant is a goal-oriented man, is he not?”

“Yes.”

The man nods as he takes the last bite of his sandwich, “Well you, B, you are the prize.” With that, he stands, lifting his tray and beginning to make his way back over to the counter to return it.

I down the last gulp of my coffee and stand up too, lifting my own tray; an empty plate the only remnants of the lunch I had.

“He creeps me out,” I call as Drew begins walking away, starting to weave between the other tables in the cafeteria. “Oh, and Drew?”

“Yeah?” He asks, turning around to look at me. His look is hopeful. I’m about to crush that.

I tap at my own shirt, as if showing him what I’m talking about, “You got mayo on yourself.”

He blinks at me for a moment, trying to shift gears in time with the jump in the conversation. Then he slowly looks down at his chest to determine the damage. He frowns, glaring at me. Then he sets his tray down on the nearest table – ignoring its sole occupant completely – and grabs a napkin to wipe the mayonnaise off his shirt.

“That’s why you should just not take off your lab coat when you eat,” I chime in happily.

He rolls his eyes, “How long has it been there?”

I shrug, “A few minutes.”

“And you didn’t tell me, why?”

I make a show of considering this before simply stating, “No reason.” Getting a better grip on my tray I walk past him and moved to return my dishes.

“Bethany, get back here!”


	2. In Your Static, Your Mess

_-Five years ago-_

 

I flip open the phone again, staring down at the keypad. Santana’s cell number is the first in my speed dial. I would only have to press one button, hit call, and then I’d be able to talk with her. We would be able to talk this out.

Because this needs to be talked out.

It was a stupid argument that got out of hand.

A stupid argument that ended with Santana storming out, leaving me to wallow around the apartment for hours and hours trying to figure out what to do. And that was two days ago. Santana had left and gone on the business trip, despite my insistence that _no she should not_ go on the damn trip.

The two of us needed to talk this out. I didn’t like the guilt building up inside because of the argument. And Santana leaving and not speaking to me for two days was not the proper way to deal with this. Maybe chasing after her wasn’t exactly the best way to deal with this either, seeing as how Santana still got her way and I was just going after her to apologise. But apologies led to talking things out properly, like the adults we were. We could work through this, just like we’d worked through all the bumps in the road the last few months. The two of us would get through it.

The phone is still here in my hand, its weight familiar. I’ve been holding on to it a lot the past two days, hoping Santana would call back.

She hasn’t, but I can’t really blame her for that. When I get angry I want to talk things out and fix the problem so I’m not angry anymore. When Santana gets angry she likes to snap at people and punch walls – not the smartest when the walls of our apartment are super thin – and avoid the issue until she cools off. She was probably avoiding calling me back to make sure that she wouldn’t say something she didn’t mean, she was stepping back and letting herself calm down.

But somehow the idea of going after Santana to try and work through this, or at least keep her company while she had to stay in a lousy hotel for a week, seemed like a good idea a few hours ago.

Plus, even if Santana is still mad at me when I get there, the idea that I came after her because I didn’t like the way we’d left things was sure to mean _something_.

I was not going after Santana to cave and say that she had been right and I’d been wrong. No, I was going after her because I didn’t like that our last words together ended with a door slamming and no ‘I love you’ called beforehand. Even when we’re arguing, ‘I love you’ is still a common phrase.

Santana likes it, it’s her way of apologising but not quite apologising.

In the end, it comes down to it all being some stupid argument that left a bitter feeling inside my belly.

I’m on the sidewalk, leaning against a lamp-post and waiting for the light to turn green. I can see a coffee place across and a little ways down the street. I just want to go inside, sit down, and order something warm while trying to figure out what to do.

I cave, fingers moving on auto-pilot to dial Santana’s number. The phone is lifted up to my ear while I glance up, watching the cars slosh by on the wet road. The light is still red.

“Come on, San, pick up.”

Santana doesn’t pick up. The phone rings and rings before changing to Santana’s voicemail. Quickly, I snap the phone shut and drop it back in my bag before Santana’s voice recording telling me to leave a message is finished. This isn’t something to leave on a voicemail. This is something to talk about.

Preferably in person, but that part of the plan isn’t going so well.

I’m damp, cold, in a city I don’t know, and my head is swirling with thoughts of guilt, anger and regret. It was a stupid fight. Stupid.

The light is still red. The ‘do not cross’ sign still illuminated. I’ve pressed the button three times by now, impatient that the light was so long despite the fact that there is hardly any traffic out.

I turn abruptly, pushing up from the light-post to watch the traffic light for the few cars moving back and forth in front of me. Their light finally flickers to amber.

Someone drives through the red, skidding through a puddle close to the curb. The water splashes, rising up over my shoes and drenching my already damp clothes from the knees down. Awesome. That is just awesome. Because I wasn’t wet and miserable enough as it was.

My light is green, the pedestrian sigh changing to a bright ‘walk.’

Huffing, I cross the road, heels clicking on the damp pavement. It isn’t raining at the moment, but it has been raining off and on the whole time I’ve been on the road. The air is damp right now though, it feels like I’m walking through mist. My hair is pulled up with a hair-tie, keeping it from plastering against my face. But I don’t wear my hair up often these days like I used to in high school; my ears are cold, used to having a layer of hair covering them. And now my legs are damp, making it seem like the cold air is pressing stronger against me, trying to chill me right down to my bones.

I grip my coat tighter around the collar, wishing I’d worn something better suited for the weather. But I’d been in a hurry. A hurry to catch Santana, to apologise.

It really was just a stupid fight.

* * *

_“Santana, you can’t go.”_

_“I have to, Britt. You know I have to go. They’re counting on me to be there.”_

_“But San-”_

_“I don’t have time to argue with you, B. A week. I’ll be gone a week. I’ll be fine.”_

_“I don’t want you to go. It isn’t good for you.”_

_“It also isn’t good for me to not show up when my boss expects me to.”_

_“He’ll understand if you just tell him that you aren’t up-”_

_“He’s an arrogant jackass who won’t understand a thing.”_

_“San, just-”_

_“Stop unpacking everything I put in the bag!”_

_“Why?”_

_“Because I have to go, Brittany! This thing is a big deal. This is a big client and if he signs with us-”_

_“But why do_ you _have to be there? You aren’t the only one going, right? Can’t James and Kait handle it without you?”_

_“Brittany.”_

_“And why do you have to be gone a whole week just so some guy signs a piece of paper? Is it made of gold or something?”_

_“It’s not made of gold, Brittany. Grow up.”_

_“Then why is this so important?”_

_“You_ know _why this is important. This guy could mean big things for us. If we get his signature everyone at the whole firm will get a pay raise. And I’m the best one on the team, I have to be there.”_

_“So it’s about money then.”_

_“Stop acting all self-righteous. Of course, it’s about money. You think that I want to go?”_

_“You’re sure acting like it.”_

_“I’m doing this for us, for you.”_

_“You’re going away for a week, for me. That makes me feel wonderful inside, San. You know just how to win a girl’s heart.”_

_“God, just listen to me for a second! This is about me, wanting the money to take you out to dinner once in a while. This is about me, wanting to make sure you have the best life I can give you.”_

_“We have money San, we’re doing just fine.”_

_“These hospital bills are eating us up B, and it’s only going to get worse.”_

_“Worse?!”_

_“Damn it, no, no, that’s not what I mean. You know that’s not what I-”_

_“Fine, go. If this is so important to you, if having_ money _is so important to you, if ignoring your health is so important to you, then go.”_

_“Britt.”_

_“You shouldn’t be going. Right now, you are physically not up to taking a three-hour drive for a week-long stay in a hotel.”_

_“You know I don’t want this.”_

_“You’re standing in front of me with a bag packed, keys in your hand. Looks to me like you want this.”_

_“Fuck, whatever, I can’t deal with you arguing with me about this. I’ll see you in a week. Don’t burn the damn place down while I’m gone.”_

* * *

I _had_ been right, we were doing just fine. Sure, our life was changing, and it was becoming more and more expensive, but it wasn’t like we couldn’t afford to buy food or pay the bills. Things were just a little tight at the moment, but it would get better. And Santana wasn’t the only one supporting us. I worked too. I pulled plenty-a-shift at the hospital, proud of my appointed title of the sweetest nurse on staff. I was good at taking care of people. After high school, while Santana had attacked her studies with a vengeance, I had studied and memorised and committed to doing this. I was _good_ at this.

Reading massive and really old books for English, or solving for x’s and y’s in math hadn’t been so awesome. But memorising what all the steps in mitosis looked like – the chromosomes go Poof Middle Apart Together; Prophase Metaphase Anaphase Telophase– or sketching little wigglies I saw under a microscope or making up silly rhymes to remember all the steps in DNA transcription and translation? That was fun. I could do that.

And studying for my anatomy tests had been wicked. Making Santana let me use her body as a model for memorising all the muscles and bones had led to some mind-blowing sex.

I had worked _hard_ and it had paid off. I supported the two of us just as much as Santana did.

But Santana didn’t see it like that. Santana always had to be the strong one. Even now, she was convinced she had to be strong, when she should be letting me take care of her. Not just because that’s what my job made me good at, but because Santana _needed_ to take a break before she ran herself into the ground and things got even worse. The doctor had already told her to take it easy. On multiple occasions.

Santana is stubborn. Which is exactly why she went on the stupid work trip.

I had lasted two days at home before deciding to go after Santana. During those two days, I’d left a total of seven voice mails for Santana, in various emotional states, saying how sorry I was and how much I missed her. Santana hadn’t picked up the phone once.

So I’d bought myself a bus ticket, and decided to go after Santana, to apologise to her in person. I still didn’t think Santana was physically up for her trip, but also I didn’t like the guilt building up inside. It didn’t matter who was right and who was wrong, whose fault the argument was. All that mattered was that Santana knew I still loved her.

I hopped on the bus to Bakersfield, California intent on telling her as much. ‘Sorry’ and ‘I love you,’ those were going to be the first words out of my mouth.

And then halfway through the three-hour drive, the bus had broken down.

Perfect.

So here I was, the middle of January, almost sundown, wandering around in a city I wasn’t familiar with trying to find somewhere to eat, and then somewhere to stay for the night until the bus was fixed and could leave again.

It wasn’t _freezing_ out; it doesn’t get freezing anywhere near where I lived. But it got cold, and it had been raining all day so it was extra cold. I could see the coffee shop; everything warm and soothing inside was calling my name. Welcoming me to come inside, sit down, and calm my fraying nerves. I just needed a minute to think, and I’d figure this out.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

I reach the coffee shop. It’s closed; a yellow sign on the door, something about health and safety inspections. Closed until further notice.

This day couldn’t possibly get any worse.

I sigh heavily, closing my eyes momentarily and pressing my forehead against the cool glass of the shop’s window. I was trying to apologise here. It didn’t matter if it was my fault or not, that’s what happened when you loved someone. You apologise anyway. Why was the universe out to get me?

Walking a few steps I stop to stand under a street light, pulling out my phone once again. This time I was going to leave a message. As needy as I didn’t want to sound, I had to let some of the frustrations building inside out.

And maybe Santana would pick up this time.

She doesn’t. I get the voice mail again.

“Hey,” I sigh into the phone, “It… it’s me. I’m sorry. This isn’t working the way I planned. This isn’t… this just isn’t working. I’m trying but… Nothing seems to be going right. I’m sorry. I…” My words trail off. This isn’t how I want to do this. I want to talk to Santana in person, not leave her message after message on her phone.

I close the cell and let it fall back into my purse. The straps dangle down from my fingers as I look up at the sky. The sun is about to drop below the buildings, painting the sky an ugly brown colour; it should be orange, the sky at sunset. But the rainy weather is mucking up the colours.

“I wish-”

My whole body is bumped sideways and a sudden jolt of pain bursts into my fingers as someone runs past me, yanking my purse from my grasp and taking it with them.

It takes me a few seconds to realise what just happened. I’d been standing there, minding my own business… that man had just stolen my bag.

“Hey!” I yell, taking chase. “Come back!”

He’s already a good ways ahead of me, running hard and fast. I can see his bald head; the hood of his dark jacket has fallen back. I call out for someone to stop him, that he’ stolen my bag, but there’s no one outside to hear, only a few cars on the road, trying to get home before it begins raining again. No one is outside to help me.

He pushes around a corner and I follow, my breath growing deeper. I’m fast, but he’s faster. He rounds another turn, and when I reach it and follow, I see that he’s already made it across the street, having darting through cars and leapt over a large puddle. My purse is still tightly clutched in his arms.

My momentum dies; I’m not going to catch him. He’s too fast.

I brace one hand against the corner of the building to catch my breath, head hanging in shame. My wallet, phone, and music player: all inside the stolen bag. Plus my bus ticket. Now the thief can go visit Santana but I can’t. I can’t even get back home now.

Tapping my pockets, I try to find some spare coins. If I can find a pay phone, maybe someone from work could come and pick me up.

I don’t find any coins. I find something worse.

My fingers are bare.

My ring is gone.

My ring. The one Santana gave me. The ring, the one that means the two of us are going to spend the rest of our lives together.

It must have fallen off when the man had grabbed my purse, forcing it from my fingers. I had been too distracted with chasing him to notice.

Knowing there is no possible way this day could get any worse I run back along my path, finding my way back to the closed-down coffee shop. My eyes stay on the ground the whole time. Once I get there I glance frantically up and down the damp pavement. Thunder rolls in the distance, but I ignore it. All of my attention is focused on the ground, hoping to catch a glimpse of a shimmer in the dying light.

I pace back and forth until the first few drops of rain start falling. My head is tilted down though, so I hardly notice. My eyes are still flying this way and that.

It doesn’t even matter about my stolen purse, all I want now is my ring. If I find that ring I know everything will be okay. Santana and me and everything else will be okay, I just need that ring back. I _need_ it. Everything will work out once I get it back, I can feel it.

The ground is slightly sloped; if my ring fell it might have rolled. I step onto the road and crouch at the curb, looking into the grate. Water draining from the road has washed chunks of damp leaves inside, along with the glimmer of an aluminum can or two. It is hard to see anything inside, it’s dark behind the bars on the curb, and the light outside is growing fainter by the minute.

I rock back and forth on my heels, begging to see something. “Please, please just let me find this.”

There; if I lean to the right I can see something reflecting back at me, catching the sun’s last rays before they die and the dark rain clouds take over the sky. Hands on my knees I glance up and look around, looking for something that will help. There is no way my arm is going to fit between the bars. I need something long and skinny to get inside and retrieve my ring.

I can see a Laundromat further down the street. Maybe they’ll have a spare coat hanger.

I stand, taking a step back from the curb and deciding that no one would turn down a frantic girl needing a piece of wire to retrieve her lost wedding ring.

Then the car hits me.


	3. New Voices

I can hear singing. A beautiful voice, singing low, smooth words close to me. The notes wrap around me tightly, close to my heart, helping me to breathe easy. The voice is calming, familiar, and the sound striking. The music around me is simply beautiful.

I strain to make out the words, but can’t. I can hear them but my understanding of their meaning is just out of reach. Trying harder I focus all I can on the voice, but I can’t decipher the words creating the beautiful song, it’s all just music, blurred together.

The harder I try, the more the words seem to fall away, until I can’t hear words at all, only a humming. And soon the humming begins to break apart too, beginning with a melody that slowly cracks and flattens, until all I can hear is a fuzzy noise in my ears, like they’ve been stuffed with cotton.

I don’t know how long I wait there, listening to the noises fall apart, a symphony collapsing in on itself. But eventually the cotton is removed, and all I can hear is a quiet beeping.

It's then I become aware of myself, of my body. I’m aware of the heavy weight bearing down on me like I’m deep underwater, of the bright light pressing against me that’s just past the dark void I’m stuck in, and of the mechanical beeping in the background. My body feels heavy, like my veins have been filled with thick syrup. Everything feels so fuzzy and off. I try to move my hands but I don’t know if they move because my body feels so heavy, or because I can’t find them. I focus on just wiggling my fingers, but I don’t know where they are. My whole body feels like just one big mass, I can’t find certain parts to try and move.

I stay still, simply feeling, until I can locate my chest by its rhythmic rise and fall. Once I find that, it becomes easier to find the rest of me. I can hear the beeping in my ears and feel the bright light pressing against my eyelids. Once I’ve figured out where all of me is, I try moving my fingers again. This time it works, I feel them scratch against some sort of fabric.

Then the pain comes. It is subtle though, diluted. Instead of a crashing angry wave, it feels more like molasses moving over me. The pain comes, slowly sweeping up from my toes to my head, but it isn’t an overwhelming pain. It is a dull ache in the background.

I lay still a moment longer, fully coming into myself before opening my eyes.

It’s bright, stingingly so. My eyes water and I squint against the light. Eventually, they adjust and I can open them fully. I’m more aware of the pain now, now that my eyes are open and I’m not floating inside my head. Which aches, my head aches. It feels like soup is boiling inside my skull. My sides hurt too, like there are a dozen tiny knives pressing into my ribs from every angle.

Turning my head I look around and take in the surroundings. I’m lying on a bed. The weight on my chest is the thick blanket pulled up over me. There’s a window to the left, with bright sunlight streaming through.

I’m lying stiffly on the bed; face up, with my legs straight together and my arms placed on top of the bedspread. And there’s a tube coming out of one of my hands. I stare at this for a moment, trying to understand what it’s doing there. I’m sure that isn’t normally supposed to be there.

The beeping catches my attention again. I look to my right; medical equipment sits next to the bed, special monitors and an IV drip.

I’m in a hospital.

…Why am I in a hospital?

I’m not sure how long I lay there, listening to the rhythmic beep of the monitor while trying to recall what happened that put me in the hospital. But I’m pulled from my thoughts when the door opens and a nurse walks inside.

She’s a short, round looking woman. She’s looking down at her clipboard as she walks into the room, unaware I’m awake.

“Hi,” I say, to get her attention.

The nurse’s eyes fly up and she sort of jumps backwards awkwardly. “Oh,” she gasps, “Oh, you’re awake.” The woman’s hand rests over her chest for a second or two, as if calming her startled heart. “Goodness, you scared me.”

“Sorry,” I say, I didn’t mean to scare her like that.

“That’s alright hon, just wasn’t expecting you to be awake.” She walks forward once she’s calmed down and begins her inspection of me and the machinery near the bed, checking to make sure everything is alright.

“You weren’t expecting me to be awake?” This interests me.

The nurse smiles kindly, “No. You’ve been unconscious for three days now.”

“Oh.” I think for a moment, still unsure why I’m here. “What happened?”

The woman’s smile tightens, looking sympathetic as she stands near the bed. “You were hit by a car, you don’t remember?”

I begin to shake my head no, but stop when that hurts too much. “No, no I…”

“That’s alright. Head trauma sometimes leaves everything a little like scrambled eggs for a while. I’ll go and let the doctor know you’re awake.” She smiles again before turning to leave. I’m alone again.

There isn’t a whole lot to do while I wait. I end up looking out the window, watching the small patch of sky that’s visible. There are a few wispy clouds out, but it’s still bright. It’s probably early afternoon.

I look up when someone new enters the room. “Hello there, Sleeping Beauty,” a dark-skinned man says as he walks towards me. “I’m Doctor Richards.” His voice sounds like a deep laugh each time he speaks. His eyes move up and down over me for a moment, asserting that there’s nothing wrong, before he talks again. “You suffered quite the knock to the head there, missy.”

“What happened to me?”

“You were hit by a car, a pretty nasty hit too.” My eyes widen, but he keeps speaking; his voice is calming. “No broken bones, so that’s good, but you have a few bruised ribs and hit your head pretty hard.” He nods to my head.

Oh their own accord, my fingers lift and find a bandage covering the side of my face, between my ear and eyebrow, reaching into the hairline. “Oh.”

“Head wounds always bleed a lot, apparently there was quite a lot of blood at the scene. By the time we got you, the paramedics had already slowed the bleeding. We gave you a few stitches, and we’re changing the dressing every little while. But there’s been no signs of infection, which is a good thing.” He steps closer and begins a more thorough examination. He shines a light in each eye, humming in approval when my pupils react properly. Then he listens to my heart and lungs, making sure nothing’s wrong there.

He asks me to take a deep breath. That hurts. Breathing is going to hurt for a while. My sides feel like someone has stuffed rocks just under the skin and they are pressing down on my ribs, trying to crack them. Who knew bruises could hurt this much?

Once he’s finished his exam, including checking the display screen of the machine next to the bed and re-adjusting the IV drip, he steps back and looks down at me. “The police will be by in a little while to get your statement,” he says. “I don’t think the person who called 9-1-1 saw who hit you.”

“I… I don’t remember.”

His smile teeters towards a frown of sympathy, “That usually happens after head-trauma accidents, not remembering the moments leading up to what happens.” He pauses, then adds, “We’ll need you to fill out some medical forms for us too. You didn’t have any ID on you when they brought you in, Miss…?” He waits, letting me fill in my name.

My mouth opens, lips automatically moving to offer the name. But nothing comes out. My mind is met with a blank. I blink a few times, eyebrows drawing together in confusion. I should know this. My name, I know what my name is, why can’t I think of it?

Why can’t I figure out what my name is?

My chest beings to tighten with panic as I try filling in other things instead, things I should know about myself. My hair colour. How old I am. What my parents look like. If I have any siblings. My mind is just… empty.

I don’t need to know what it means when his face falls. I already know what he’s going to say: I can’t remember.

* * *

Post-traumatic retrograde amnesia.

That’s what I have, that was what Dr Richards had called it. He said it could last a few hours, or a few days, that it was hard to tell with head injuries, knowing just how much damage had occurred inside.

I can’t remember anything about myself. My name, age, where I live, what my bedroom looks like. I can’t remember people; parents, friends, or relatives. I don’t know what I do for a living or if I’ve ever been on vacation. I don’t know my favourite food or colour or animal. It’s all just… empty.

It scares me; lying in the hospital bed, not knowing who I am. It scares me just how empty it is inside my head. I’ll try to think and there’s just this huge abyss in front of me. Everything I know about myself is on the other side, where I can’t get to.

One of the nurses took my picture the other day, saying if anyone was looking for me, that they’d be able to find me here.

It’s been four days though. No one has come to claim me, to take me home to my family. If I have a family. I don’t really know.

There isn’t a whole lot to do. They moved me to a different room though, and it has a television. And I share the room with someone. An old Asian man who sleeps most of the day, his name is Mr Kil and his leg is broken. He’s nice enough, when he’s awake, but slowly begins to lose his patients in carrying a conversation with someone who doesn’t know her own name. He doesn’t snore when he sleeps though, which is good.

Whenever he is awake, however, Mr Kil insists the television only play the news, he likes knowing what is going on in the world while he’s stuck in the hospital. But it gets boring. Because as beautiful as Santa Clarita, California looks from inside the window, its news is not all that interesting.

When he’s watching the news I tend to gaze out the window for long periods of time. It would probably look a lot nicer outside if it wasn’t winter right now. But it’s a desert, so there isn’t a whole lot to see. Mostly it’s cloudy out. One of the nurses told me that it hardly ever snows here, but that it rains sometimes in the winter. She told me it was raining the day of the accident.

Since my roommate is asleep most of the time I do get to watch some TV, and have found that even though I don’t remember who I am, I do remember things. I recognise characters and shows. There are _Friends_ reruns on, and sometimes I can quote the character’s lines before they say them.

“That’s normal for amnesia patients,” Dr Richards tells me. “Usually a patient loses their declarative memory but retains their fact and procedural memory, which is why you can remember events but nothing personal about them. We had a patient a few months ago who remembered how to play the piano, but had no idea who had taught him.”

I have no idea if I know how to play the piano, they’d have to get one in here for me to try to test this theory.

I’m still getting really bad headaches, but Dr Richards says that normal too.


	4. And Choices

On Mr Kil’s last day in the hospital before he is released – assigned to bed rest at home – is when I meet his daughter, Jen. Mr Kil is sleeping when she arrives, so she and I talk for a while. She’s nice enough; a lot more talkative than her father. But almost too talkative. And her face always looks pinched, like there is always a bad smell under her nose.

Right away I can tell she feels bad for me. I figure it’s going to be like this for a while now, people not knowing how to react when I say I don’t know my name. How exactly do you carry a conversation with someone who doesn’t remember anything about themself?

She’s sitting on the chair that normally sits next to Mr Kil’s bed, but she moved it closer to me in order to talk. I’m sitting up in my bed, fingers playing with the IV needle taped to the back of my hand. At first, Jen intimidates me. She’s tiny and has dark, fierce eyes and moves her hands in sharp, jerky motions while she speaks. But once I relax into her presence it’s easier to listen.

That’s mostly what happens, Jen carries the conversation and I listen. She talks really fast. I can’t tell if it’s either she thinks she needs to get every thought out of her body as fast as possible so that I don’t interrupt, or that she just has too many thoughts that are pouring out of her body faster than she can control.

She’s in university, but can’t decide if she should declare an English or a Linguistics degree. I’m not really much help to her, but I listen as she talks, and she seems to like that.

Maybe she talks really fast because she’s used to people not listening or cutting her off, so she tries to get out as many words while people are still paying attention to her as possible.

“So,” Jen finally offers, when she seems to have exhausted all the things about herself that she can say. “No one’s come by the hospital with a missing person’s report matching you?”

I shake my head no.

“That kind of sucks. Maybe you live alone? Do you think you’re the kind of person who would have moved away from home and cut all contact with your family?”

I’m not really sure how to answer this, since I can’t even picture what my family looks like. “I… I don’t know.”

“Mmm,” she muses, twirling a lock of dark hair in around her fingers. “Well, if you don’t show up for work someone will notice. Or your neighbours might realise you’ve disappeared when your newspaper’s start piling up. Unless you’re homeless. Do you feel homeless?” She leans forward with her hands on her knees, pressing the matter. “Do you think you might have been homeless?”

“Um… I don’t think so?”

“Mmm,” she says again. “Probably not. You’re a pretty woman, I can’t imagine you being homeless. How old do you think you are?” She doesn’t pause to let me answer though. “I’d say mid-to-late twenties. It’s possible you’re still single, and that’s why no one’s looking for you. But again…” she frowns, looking me up and down disapprovingly. “I can’t really judge fashion sense if you’re in a hospital gown. But your hair and fingernails look well kept. Maybe you just got out of a really bad relationship? A breakup. That’s it. That would explain you being pretty and single.”

I’m pretty sure that was both a compliment and an insult, but I don’t say so. She keeps talking, and I start to wish Mr Kil would wake up soon. Talking with him may be a little more difficult, but at least he breaths in between sentences and doesn’t make me feel like he’s secretly insulting me.

Jen questions me some more, and I try not to be rude. She’s only trying to help. Though asking things like if I think I might be allergic to pets, or if I’m the type of person to travel gets annoying. I  _don’t know_  if I’m allergic to pets of if I like to travel. I don’t know anything.

That’s what it comes down to essentially, that I don’t really know anything.

“And the doctors don’t know how long it will last?”

I shake my head, “Dr Richards said that sometimes things from your past can trigger memories, like seeing people or places that your mind recognises. It might bring memories to the surface and help the brain recognise old pathways.”

“But since no one’s here with you, that isn’t happening,” she nods to herself.

I do have memory flashes, when I’m sleeping. There are a few things that repeat, but they don’t mean anything I can grasp. A house with a big tree in the front yard. A voice. A few blurry faces.

The voice and the faces I can’t place at all. But the house must either be where I live now, or where I lived at one point in my life. Something makes me think it was some time ago, when I was little. The tree is really big and tall, good for climbing. I have long legs. Maybe I climbed it when I was little.

The voice is the same voice from before, when I first woke up. When I’m sleeping I get flashes of it. Sometimes it’s speaking, sometimes is singing. But I can never tell what it's saying, or even if it’s male or female. I know inside that I know who the voice belongs to, but there’s a wall inside my head keeping everything from me.

Sometimes in my dreams, I see more. The faces come almost into focus, I can almost make out the words the voice is saying. Other images surface that I know I should remember. But it all fades away when I wake up. It’s frustrating. And it makes my headaches worse.

“I think the thing that would bother me the most,” Jen says, “Would be the name thing. I could maybe deal with not remembering other things. But I’d at least want to know my name.”

I open my mouth to say something, but she talks over me.

“Or at least choose a name for people to call me until I can remember my real one, it would make things easier.” She gasps then, looking at me and clapping her hands. “Oh, that’s it! Make up a name for yourself!”

I give her a confused look. “What?”

Her eyes are wider than any woman’s eyes should ever be, “Make up a name for yourself!”

“But I have a name.” I just can’t remember it.

Jen hushes me, “For one, trying to think up a name might help you remember your own. Two, do you know how hard this is for me to talk with you when you don’t have a name? Very difficult,” she snaps the last part at me. “If you give yourself a name, at least the nurses will have something to call you besides ‘the girl in 307.’”

That does make sense.

Jen seems to know she’s won. “Go on. Pick out a name.”

“Um.”

“Come on.” Her words blur together, growing higher in pitch, “People pick out names for babies all the time. It can’t be that hard. And people make up aliases and second identities and stuff like that, right? That’s like you. Just pick a name.”

She wants me to have a name so it’s easier to talk with me, but I take her idea of it maybe helping me remember my actual one to heart. “Let me think,” I ask her quietly.

At first, about a million names flood into my mind all at one, all of them begging and pleading with me to pick them. They bubble up and jostle each other and reach out towards me with wiggling fingers. But I push them all down, I want to take this seriously. I’m not just picking a name. I’m picking an identity for myself, a way for people to address me until I remember my real name.

I let each of the names float in front of me, one at a time, analysing each one in turn. Both as a temporary name, and to see if they’re familiar. Familiar as in if it feels like my own name, or to see if they trigger something in my memory, like a name of someone I know. Each name has its own flavour, and I take my time to test out each and every one I think up, hoping something will tug the right way on my taste-buds.

I make my way through the alphabet, going through all the girls’ names I can think of. I test each one out in my mind, listening to the way it sounds inside my head, pausing a moment before discarding to see if I remember something.

Some of the names sound too old, more like someone out of an old book, like Beatrice or Dianne or Ruth. Others sound too ethnic for the pale skin I’ve seen reflected in the hospital bathroom mirror, like Aisha or Tenisha or Priya. Some I come up with make me pause, like I remember someone with the name, but I can’t pull up the memories, like Susan or Tina or Holly. A few feel too fancy, like stained glass that is better to look at than touch, like Olivia or Annika or Camille. Some feel too short for me, like Lea or Min or Sara, or too long, like Virginia or Dominique or Audrianna. Others feel pretty, but just don’t sit right, like Layla or Jade or Tienna.

I go through the alphabet as best I can, and by the time I reach the end, though I haven’t found a name that will work as a substitute, or that feels like my own, I’ve narrowed it down. Each time a name beginning with the letter ‘B’ floats through my mind, it tugs a little harder at something inside. They tumble to my lips, and I whisper them, trying again; Bridget, Brianne, Bennett, Bianca, Bristol, Beverly, Bethany.

Bethany. It doesn’t feel quite right, but it’s as close as I can get. It screams ‘almost there,’ but I can’t push my mind any closer. I’m already stretching my fingers out into the darkness that surrounds the edges of my mind, hiding everything from me. 

Jen’s attention drifted from me to the television – she’s watching the news, like father like daughter – while I was absorbed in the names. Her red painted nails tap restlessly on the arms of the chair while a reporter talks about a car pile-up on the highway.

She looks over at me, “You done?”

I nod.

“And? Did you pick a name?”

“I think… Bethany. It sounds… I think it sounds close to my old name. I’m not sure. Something about it feels…” something about it feels almost familiar. I don’t think this one was actually my name, but it has to be close. It’s like my name tastes like mint-chocolate and Bethany tastes like just the mint, it’s almost but not quite right, it’s missing a key something.

“Bethany,” Jen tests out, eyes scrutinising me. “You sure? It sounds kind of… peppy.”

“I’m sure,” I say.

One of her eye’s twitches, I can tell she doesn’t approve of my choice, but she lets it go and launches back into talking about her school problems again. I’m glad she let it go; it really was a good idea. I feel… happy. I feel happy that I’ve found a name. I haven’t felt happy since I woke up in here.

But I vow to keep trying out names. I don’t know if I’ll be able to find one that fits better, but I want to see if anymore feel even a little familiar. Dr Richards said sometimes seeing old pictures or talking with people you once knew can trigger memories. The best I can do right now is try to remember their names.

* * *

I tell Judith, the nurse I met on my first day awake, first.

Once Mr Kil wakes up a nurse comes by to help him into a wheelchair and he and Jen leave. I wave goodbye at him; he grunts at me and tells me not to get hit by any more cars. I laugh and tell him not to fall down any more stairs. He nods his approval.

Jen rolls her eyes at us. I can’t tell if she likes me or not.

Judith comes by a little while later with my lunch. Of the nurses on staff, she’s my favourite.

She acts tough and like she’s always in a hurry, but she knows her stuff and is really nice. And she’s one of those people who are good talkers. It’s not that she rushes her words out or has a whole lot to say, but when she does talk everything she says just makes you want to listen more. Sometimes the things she says are random, sometimes they make perfect sense. But they always make you want to listen more to what she has to say.

She tells great stories – and she sneaks me apple fritters, bonus – about her family and her life. She has three teenage boys, two dogs, three cats, and a “white as fuck husband who thinks he can rap.” Apparently, this is his way of bonding with his children. Judith says she married a dork. I think it’s funny.

“Guess what?” I ask as she enters the room with a tray of food.

“You enjoyed Mr Kil’s company so much you stashed him in the adjoined bathroom so they couldn’t take him away?” she answers without hesitation.

“What? No,” I laugh. “Guess what great idea his daughter had?”

“To repopulate the earth using only people who like mushrooms?”

“I… why would you do that?”

She plops herself down in the chair Jen had next to my bed; I know she likes taking her break when she brings me lunch. I think I’m one of her favourite patients.

“So people stop throwing out damn good food.” She nods to the tray. “Cream of mushroom soup. I’ve had three people toss it out already.”

I pull it closer and inspect my lunch. A thick, greying soup with bits of onion and parsley. It smells really good. “It smells really good. And you still haven’t guessed right.”

“Well eat it then, can’t have you losing weight while you’re here.” Judith is under the impression I’m too thin, she calls me fragile-looking often. I’m not sure why, I don’t think I’m really underweight. She says I’m tall so it’s deceiving. I told her I’m in a hospital so it’s deceiving, of course I look sick and pale and thin. Judith herself is what she calls “a plump, respectable weight.”

“You still haven’t guessed,” I insist as I spoon out a mouthful. It doesn’t just smell really good, it is really good. Why would anyone throw this out? It’s like heaven for your taste buds.

“I’m not going to get it, am I?”

I decide to tell her, we could be here all day if I kept making her guess. Because she’s right, she wouldn’t guess it. She’d guess just about every other completely random thing except the thing I want her to guess.

“Jen suggested I pick out a name. Since I can’t remember.”

The happy glimmer in her eyes recedes slightly as her mood sobers. This tends to happen with all the nurses, Judith especially. I’m just another happy patient until suddenly I’m the poor girl who can’t remember anything. “Oh?” she asks carefully.

“Yeah. I thought it was a really good idea. At least this way I have something for people to call me. Until I can remember.” If I can remember. But I don’t say that out loud.

“And what did you come up with.”

“Bethany.”

She smiles, thinking for a moment. “It suits you. It’s cute. Happy.”

“Jen said it sounded peppy.”

“You are rather peppy for someone stuck in a hospital.”


	5. Grant

Grant Duncan would describe himself as a very important person.

He oozes importance, really, and people should take note. He isn’t the type to offer his seat to the elderly on the rare and utterly unfortunate occasion he is subject to public transportation, but he is the kind to run red lights because he is always in a hurry and everyone else needs to stand aside. He is high up in the economic food-chain, and has learned to look down on lesser mortals in order to get what he wants. Not tipping or talking down to a waiter? A necessary evil in order for him to assert himself; not everyone has the kind of power and money at their disposal that Grant does. Not everyone has the cash to fly first class from Phoenix to Santa Clarita, not for personal reasons, but simply as a way of manipulating their father. Not that he does fly first class, he takes the company jet.

Though it isn’t so much _manipulating_ as simply appeasing the old man, handling him. Nicholas Duncan may be clever in his old age, but he is still living under the impression that Grant is a warm-hearted soul. And Grant intends to keep it that way.

Either way, Grant is important and most others are not. It is just the way of the world.

His father is the founder of, and Grant himself has plenty of shares in, Duncan BioTech Research Laboratories in Phoenix, Arizona. They are one of the leading companies in developing new wonder drugs and gene therapies. They lead the world in advancements in pharmacogenomics.

Aside from his father, Grant is top dog. He runs the corporate world of the company. He oversees the research and development projects, and is responsible for promoting and selling their newest medical products to investors. Grant is very good at selling things. He could sell a glass of water to a drowning man if he wanted to.

There are plenty of disappointments down in the labs of their facility – for every one success there are at least fifteen failures, and every one of their successes takes years to fully develop – but Grant only deals with success. Other people make their products; he sells them to the public and makes the big bucks.

At just over six feet, Grant is a very imposing man. He’s well built; not overly muscular, but enough to seem threatening should the situation arise. He keeps his professionally cut sandy blonde hair slicked back, and has grey eyes sharp enough to cut through steel. His preferred attire is a business suit; he enjoys looking polished as he bullies people into investing into his company’s products.

Though he doesn’t work in the labs, Grant does have a background in microbiology. If he really wanted to, he could be one of the top researchers. But he’s always preferred black suits to white lab coats. It’s just the way things work with him. Why do all the hard work when you can jump right to the end? Why spend hours doing all the research when you can skip to presenting it to the class?

Though he lives in Arizona, Grant is currently in California, on a mindless errand he is performing only to appease his father. Grant plans on taking over the company, but his father is worried he’s too aggressive. So Grant forces himself to do these little mundane things to convince him otherwise. Like kissing babies or posing for pictures with puppies. He isn’t a fan of it, but he’ll do it if necessary.

Grant isn’t aggressive. He’s simply goal oriented.

Considering he works at a medical research lab, Grant is not particularly fond of hospitals. Not at all. Though, his labs are clean, spotless and well kept. Hospitals tend to have sickly and dying people lying about. It’s unfortunate.

He feels the need for a coffee fix coming on, so as he leaves the patient room he was inside he stops at the nurse’s station. “Directions to the nearest coffee place,” he says in the general direction of the desk while looking down at his phone. One of the board directors has been trying to reach him all day; they need Grant to smooth over something with one of their investors that is having second thoughts. It isn’t a problem, both the smoothing over and the getting back as soon as possible; Grant has already made plans with Joseph, the BioTech private jet pilot, he wants to leave within the next hour and a half so he can get back to Arizona.

As expected, someone at the nurse’s station responds. “They have a coffee and doughnut place on the main floor,” a feminine voice answers, from right next to him.

He looks up and does a double-take. Grant is not normally someone who can be taken by surprise, he prides himself on this in fact, but this woman has caused his mind to short-circuit in a matter of seconds.

He’s looking into the most stunning blue eyes he’s ever seen. Bright and crystal like, they blink happily at him, the woman’s smile reaching them fully. If Grant were romantic, he’d say they twinkle.

His eyes rake up and down her body, taking her in, and the rest of her is just as stunning as her eyes. Tall, lean, but with well-accentuated curves, long flowing blonde hair, a child-like smile. The woman is beautiful. What someone this good-looking is doing working in a hospital, he can’t be sure. With her looks, she could work just about anywhere.

“Though,” she goes on when he doesn’t answer, “I hear the coffee is pretty bad there. I haven’t tried it, but a few of the nurses complain about it all the time. One called it black sludge mixed with tar once.” She gives a shy giggle, like she thinks it’s funny but isn’t sure if he does.

Grant stares at her for a moment, not expecting her response at all. “Can you recommend something better?” He eventually comes up with. His voice is calm and cool, as always.

She smiles even brighter, happy with being questioned further. “There’s a coffee place just down the street. I know because Judith goes there and sneaks apple fritters in here for me sometimes.”

What strikes Grant is how open the woman is. Considering she works in a place where people are sick and dying and completely dependent on her care, her smile is very open. Her presence is warming, inviting. She’s leaning to one side, a palm flat on the reception desk, and bouncing slightly on her feet as she regards him with bright eyes. She’s waiting for him to say something.

“Just down the street?” he clarifies.

“Mm hmm,” she hums happily. She’s cute. And on top of cute, she has on rocking body. Grant hasn’t had a good fling in a while.

“When do you get off shift, maybe you can join me?” He can easily tell Joseph to set the plane back an hour.

Her smile widens and laughter fights to bubble up. Grant thinks he’s won until she shakes her head and chuckles, “I’m not a nurse here.” The look on her face is surprised, as if she can’t understand him suggesting such a compliment.

His eyes move over her body again, taking her in a second time. She’s in hospital wear and bare feet, and there are twin strips of bandages covering a line above her left temple. Despite her bright eyes, her face is void of make-up and her hair, though stunning, hangs limply around her shoulders.

“You’re a patient,” he states, surprised.

“Yep.” She bounces on her feet again as she begins explaining, “I came to tell one of the nurses that I think Mr Kil accidentally took the television remote with him when he was discharged; the TV’s mounted on the wall and I can’t reach the button to turn it on. But I think one of the patients down the hall,” she points behind her, in the opposite direction Grant has just come, “started seizing or something. Right as I was walking towards the desk everyone started running down the hall. I hope whoever it is, is okay.”

It takes Grant a few seconds to process this. None of the things that seem to tumble out of this girl’s mouth are what he’s expecting her to say.

She’s still looking brightly at him, so despite a tiny voice inside him telling him if she’s a patient then why is he bothering, she could be expected to drop dead in days, he pockets his phone and offers her his hand to shake. “Grant Duncan.”

This causes the smile on her face to bloom even brighter, and she quickly moves to shake his hand. “Bethany.”

“You have a last name, Bethany?”

“Oh,” her face falls slightly. “I… no. Bethany isn’t actually my name, it’s just a name I picked for people to call me until I can remember my actual name.” She points to her head, “Amnesia. I was hit by a car.” Despite the sadness of the story, her energy level doesn’t decrease.

“You were hit by a car?” He’s a little surprised with this. Again, everything she says surprises him. _She_ surprises him.

She intrigues him. He’s never met someone quite so bubbly before; especially someone who was recently hit by a car. He has to wonder what she was like before she forgot herself.

“Mmm,” she bobs her head. “Yeah. So now I don’t remember anything. But Mr Kil’s daughter thought I should pick out a name so people have something to call me until I remember. And that makes sense, it’s so much easier to talk with people when they can associate you with a name. Plus the doctor said it was a good exercise in stretching my memory.”

Something makes his eyebrows draw closer together, “No one’s come looking for you?” He can’t imagine that. How someone like this is alone in a hospital. How she had to come up with her own name since no one was there to tell her hers.

Her eyes lose some of their shine and her lip tightens slightly, “No.” She hesitates a moment before forcing another smile and changing the topic. “So why are you here? Are you sick?”

His lip twitches, “No.” He doesn’t like sick people, so this whole trip has been rather unpleasant.

“Visiting someone then?” Bethany offers.

“Yes. My father’s third ex-wife, I came to pay my respects.”

The girl standing before him looks horrified, “She died? Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“No, no,” Grant clarifies casually, “But she’s nearing her end. Figured I’d go and get it out of the way before she died.” That and his father insisted he go and see Ex-Wife Number Three as soon as he heard she was in the hospital. His father seems to think Grant has wonderful relationships with all his ex-wives. Grant doesn’t, but if it appeases his father then he’s willing to pretend for a few hours.

“Oh, that’s so nice of you. I’m sure she appreciates it.” The way she says it, Grant almost believes her. “Third wife,” she goes on. “That’s a lot.”

A lot indeed. A lot of women to have to play nice with while his father spends all the family money doting on them. “Yeah. He’s on his fifth wife at the moment.” His father is ‘sure this one is going to last.’

“Wow,” Bethany says. “That’s… wow. That’s a lot of weddings.”

It’s a lot of honeymoons is what it is. Grant’s father tosses money away like it’s lint on an expensive suit. Though, Grant would too if we here the head of the company. But he isn’t, yet. So naturally, he’s critical of every move his father makes.

“It gets old,” he answers her. “Watching him promise to cherish and love her, only to have that diminish after a year or two.”

“That’s sad,” she says softly. “That he can’t find someone to be truly happy with. I think everyone deserves to find their true love. Find them and never let them go.”

“Mmm,” he says, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. Grant’s a practical man; true love doesn’t exist in his world. But this girl? This girl is definitely worth more of his time. Not love, he doesn’t believe in love, but she is sure worth his affections. “I have to head out; I have a plane to catch.”

“Oh, okay. It was nice talking with you.”

“It was nice talking with you too, Bethany. You going to be here much longer?”

“I’m not sure,” she answers honestly. “Dr Richards says it all depends on how I progress over the next little while – I’ve only been here a few days – and if anyone comes looking for me. I don’t really have anywhere to go.”

“Well,” he says, his mind spinning, “Maybe I’ll see you around sometime.” Ex-Wife Number Three is definitely going to be getting more visits.

He’s never had a fling with an amnesia patient. This could be interesting.


	6. I’ve Gone Long Enough

They got me a new remote for the television since I’m positive Mr Kil ended up taking it with him when he was discharged. I had to beg one of the other nurses for it though, since I knew Judith wouldn’t want to get it for me. Judith doesn’t, well, it isn’t that she doesn’t approve of what I’ve started watching. I think she’s more worried that I’ll never watch anything else again.

I moved on from _Friends_ reruns.

I ended up on the channel by accident the first time; I had been channel surfing, diligently trying to avoid all the news stations that reported constantly boring weather and traffic reports. I wanted to actually _watch_ something. I was partially glad Mr Kil was gone, he _enjoyed_ watching the weather repeat over and over again.

So I ended up there by accident, but have found that the _Discovery Channel_ is an amazing way to pass the time when confined to a hospital room twenty-four seven. Programs about survival, different places around the world, natural disasters, animals. And then the science shows. _MythBusters_. _How it’s Made._ There was even a special on the brain, and one about disease.

It’s a little addicting, to say the least.

Five hours after the special on disease came on, it’s airing again; that’s the only real problem, sometimes they repeat things. But I don’t mind watching it again. It’s interesting, listening to them explain mutations and pathogens and how bacteriophages infect their host.

It’s a little boring sometimes, especially the second time around, and there are a lot of scientific things but… I understand a lot of it. I can understand most of what they’re talking about, I know I’ve learned it, I know it feels familiar.

“You know sitcoms are good for you too,” Judith says as she comes into the room. She’s early for work; sometimes she arrives for her shift early so she can keep me company. Which is nice. Since Mr Kil left I don’t have a lot of company.

I try not to think about why that is.

“I know,” I say, smiling at her as she takes a seat near the bed. “Laughing is good for you. But learning is good for you too.”

She nods, “Only teasing. How’s the head,” she nods towards my bandage.

“Better,” I say honestly. “The headaches aren’t so bad anymore. And walking is fine now, I don’t get as dizzy and my sides are healing pretty well, so they don’t hurt as much.”

“That’s good then, can’t have you lying in that bed forever.”

I bark out a laugh, “But then I’d get to watch all the TV I want.”

“Really,” she insists, her serious face showing, “The amount of time you spend watching that station is beginning to worry me. I might request you being moved to a room with no television in it.”

“That’s just mean,” I glare, but only for a moment, my need to explain greater than my need to pretend to be angry. “I just… I don’t remember anything about myself, about who I was. And I have nothing around me that I recognise. But this,” I wave a hand towards the TV, “I remember this. Not, not like _all_ of it, but bits and pieces.”

“So,” Judith rationalises, “You worked for the _Discovery Channel_ before you were hit in the head?”

I give her a half smile, “I don’t know. I do know I remember this. And not… not just the facts, but I remember learning it. I have remembered feelings from when I learned it.”

She leans forward, clearly curious with that I’m telling her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean like, the special they had on the brain? They were going over different parts and… and I _remember_ feeling so annoyed learning the parts. They were talking about what each lobe does and I suddenly felt frustrated, like my mind remembered how difficult and interconnected it was to learn the first time around and was reminding me. It’s… I don’t have anything else.”

It’s been a week and a half since my accident, and no signs of me regaining my memory or of anyone coming to look for me. I don’t know what I did for a living, it could be something completely unrelated, but the science, the biology, feels familiar. There’s something inside me telling me to latch onto it, because it’s the only real part of me that I know.

Judith’s voice is gentle when she speaks, “Do you have any idea what you were before this? Maybe you were a doctor, or a physical therapist or nurse or something?”

I nod, I’ve thought about it. “Maybe.” I look away from her, gazing out the window into the city I can’t recognise. “Maybe a doctor? Was I smart enough to do that in school? I don’t know. And if I am, what kind of doctor? A family one or a surgery one or something else entirely. Maybe I’m a painter or a kindergarten teacher or a dancer or something and just have a science kick.”

“Science teacher?” Judith offers.

“Maybe,” I say, still not looking back at her. “I just know I remember this, I remember things about it so I want to hold onto it.” I’ve tried. I’ve tried so hard to remember other things, to find the fuses inside my head and light them. I’ve tried forcing the sparks but they won’t come, I can’t make them come when they aren’t ready.

I mean, little things have come back. There were bananas with lunch one day and I only had to take one bite before the feeling of _I hate bananas_ washed over me. I know I was a person who couldn’t stand bananas. As soon as the thought came to me, I knew it was true.

I know all the words to a jingle for a fast food restaurant. A commercial came on and I automatically sang along with all the words. It was weird, knowing all the words but not knowing where they’re coming from. I don’t know if I eat there, or if I just memorised the jingle.

And I know I like to move around a lot, I fidget in bed and then get up and pace the room. I know I must have been an active person, I can’t sit still for very long.

I know I’m a cat person. There was a humane society commercial on and seeing the dogs made me sad, but seeing the cats made my heart squeeze in a way that I couldn’t explain. It was just… a natural reaction. I don’t even remember my name but I know I love cats.

But it’s frustrating. Do I have a cat? Did I at some point? Why cats over dogs?

It’s all so annoying, that I can’t remember. That no one is here to help me remember.

That I’m alone and have to rebuild who I was by myself.

Maybe I was a doctor, maybe I wasn’t. But science is one of the things that sparks connections inside my head. So I’m holding onto it. Maybe eventually I’ll watch the right science show and it will set off the right fuse, the one that leads to the fireworks, to me remembering.

* * *

When Dr Richards got wind of my random but very sure knowledge of science he started coming by my room more, asking and probing me about when I do and don’t remember. He asked me questions, questions that initially I had no idea what they meant – like _The maximum systolic pressure is represented by what in a blood pressure reading?_ – but was immediately able to answer anyways – _The top number._ For the first few seconds, I had no idea what the word systolic meant, but my brain was still able to fill in the answer for me.

He tested me, poking around inside my head. He said a lot of my answers seemed textbook, things I had memorised and that’s why I retained the information. Dr. Richards said he couldn’t be sure what profession I had been working before the accident, but that I had definitely studied hard at school, and probably not all too long ago either.

He started bringing me science and doctor-y journals and articles to read once he realised that pretty much all I do now is look out the window, talk with Judith and watch TV. They’re boring as hell to read, but at least it gives me something else to do.

It’s been over two weeks now.

Still nothing.

I’ve got some clothes now, and my own hairbrush and toiletries. Judith bought me some things when she realised no one was coming to see me anytime soon and said I must be getting sick of wearing the hospital clothes.

I was, but didn’t really have anyone to complain to.

Dr. Richards has said he wants to keep me here for at least a month for observations, to make sure there aren’t any lingering side-effects and that nothing else goes wrong with my brain. He’s hoping I’ll regain some of my memory by then, but says there’s no way of knowing.

No one talks about what happens to me after the month is up. I mean, I know I can’t just live in the hospital for the rest of my life…but I don’t know where I’m going to go.

We all play the game of not talking about it and pretending it isn’t there.

So I’m sitting on my hospital bed, feet curled under me, reading an old – and extremely boring and dense – edition of a neuroscience journal when someone walks into my room, knocking on the open door as they do so.

My head whips up; a visitor.

It’s the man from a few weeks ago, the one I met in the hallway who thought I was a nurse. What was his name, what was his name?

“Oh, hi,” I say carefully, dropping the journal and looking up at him.

“Bethany, right?”

“Yes. I remember you…”

“Grant,” he says, offering his hand for me. “Grant Duncan.”

“Right,” I smile, remembering the name now; it sounds more like two first names than a last name and a first name. But I figure that isn’t really a polite thing to say. “What are you…?” I gesture around the room; what is he doing here _?_

“Visiting Lydia again,” he says smoothly. “She had a setback; my father’s somewhere around here too. I’m not really sure why he’s wasting his time here, he has a _new_ wife, but he insists. And what he insists, I do.”

Uh huh. “What are you doing _here?_ ”

“Oh,” he chuckles. He actually chuckles. “I just asked the women at the desk where the girl with the pretty blue eyes and stunning smile’s room was, and she directed me here.”

I smile, he’s charming. A little forceful, but charming.

“Any memories back yet?” he asks, eyebrows raised and waiting for me to answer.

My eyes flicker over to the empty chair in the room, and I nod my head at him before I answer. I figure since he came here to see me I may as well offer him to sit down. Plus I haven’t had anyone visit except Judith, so I’m not about to deny the company.

He sits as I speak, “Nothing concrete. I can remember some things, things that feel familiar. But no names or places or anything like that.”

He gives me a sympathetic look, “That’s too bad.”

I shrug in response, giving him a tense smile. “Not a whole lot I can do about it. I try focusing on the things I remember, hoping something will catch. And I read, and watch TV, and eat the apple fritters Judith sneaks me.”

“Apple fritters?” He asks. “You’ve got a sweet tooth.”

“Yeah,” I smile, “I think I do.”

“I’ve never had one of those.”

I want to let my mouth fall open, but I don’t, I shouldn’t judge him. I don’t even know if I’d ever had one before my accident. “They’re really good. You should try one.”

“Hmm,” he muses. “I don’t normally grab anything to eat when I’m in a coffee place.”

He’s a ‘coffee, black’ person. I can feel it.

“You should totally change that, the snacks are the best part of the coffee experience.”

He barks out a laugh, “If you say so. I’ll keep that in mind next time I get coffee.”

I watch his eyes drift from mine to look at the magazine at my side, “Light reading?” I smile and hold it up for him to read the cover, biting back a smirk as his eyebrows rise in response. “Not so light then.”

“This is one of the more boring ones; everything is too technical and dense for me to understand a lot of it. Bits and pieces I get though, and the pictures are really neat.” I tap the cover, an image of the brain with sections of it lit up in purple fluorescence.

“Interesting choice for a hospital patient to read, an amnesia patient at that.”

“Oh, I didn’t even think of that,” I laugh. “I was reading it because Dr Richards gave me a bunch to read, not because I wanted more info on what was wrong with my head.”

He frowns, leaning closer, “Your doctor is giving you science journals to read? That’s a little… odd.”

I shake my head, leaning back on my hands to stretch my legs out properly, “It’s one of the things I remember. Not, not neuroscience, that’s way too difficult for me. But science and medicine and stuff like that, I remember them, I remember learning and memorising facts about them. The doctor says that’s good, that certain parts of my memory are intact, he says there’s hope for me remembering other things too.

“That’s kind of why I’m reading them, I’m waiting for something to really connect and give me more to go off than that my name isn’t but sounds similar to Bethany.”

His eyes widen a little and his head tilts to one side, taking me in. “You were a doctor or something before your accident?”

“Or something. I don’t know what, but I know I’ve learned this,” I wiggle the magazine.

“Not often you find such pretty girls working in science.”

I cannot help the snort that breaks free, “You did not just say that.”

“I did,” he counters smoothly, “I did. I work at a bio-engineering lab; most of the people there are freaks and weirdos. No one as stunning as you.” He winks.

We talk for a little while longer, about science, his work, and then back to apple fritters again, before he says he has to go. I frown, because as bizarre as it is to talk with a complete stranger like this, getting to interact with someone outside of the hospital staff is a nice change. And Grant’s nice. His personality is a little forceful, but he’s charming and it’s fun to talk with someone different for a change.

He waves as he leaves, saying he’ll stop by and see me next time he’s at the hospital.

* * *

Grant starts becoming a regular visitor. I’m pretty sure he isn’t visiting his father’s ex-wife anymore, I’m fairly certain he’s only coming here to visit me. Which is a little strange, but it’s still nice. When the only people I get to see day in and day out are hospital staff it’s nice having a visitor, even if he isn’t someone from before the accident, trying to help me remember.

He does help me remember things, in a way. He lets me talk with him, just talk, the way I do with Judith. I tell him my theory about me being a cat person, I tell him about the craving I have for shrimp recently, and I tell him about the voices I can hear but never put a face to; the memories that are too covered in fog for me to reach. I don’t mention the voice I can hear in my mind sometimes, the one who sings, I haven’t really told anyone about that yet, but I know it’s important.

Everything I can almost remember is important – that’s the problem. I can almost remember them, but never enough to satisfy what I want to know.

I want to know who I am.

Grant doesn’t actually live in Santa Clarita, I find out. He was staying here, meeting with important people and trying to sell them on the new research platforms and radical new drug therapies his company engineers. I don’t catch a lot of the business-talk, but I’ve gathered that there’s someone here offering to invest a lot of money but are holding back.

Grant lives in Phoenix. He was in Santa Clarita for three weeks and now he’s just flying back and forth periodically, trying to solve whatever business plan it is he’s trying to sell.

He’s an interesting man. I’m flattered but not really interested in all the flirting he does with me, but aside from that, he is a nice guy. And smart. He says he doesn’t work in the labs, but he sure knows his stuff.

We end up talking about science a lot; his science and the science I remember are different. He’s convinced I was a med student before the accident; a lot of the things I remember are more medical and physiological whereas he knows more lab and engineering things.

The month drags on, and I get no closer to remembering who I was before the car hit me. I still hope that someone will come to the hospital looking for me, but it’s sinking in more and more that it won’t happen. For whatever reason, either no one is looking for me or they’re looking in the wrong place.

I’m still alone.

When it’s been a month and a half Dr Richards can’t really justify keeping me here any longer. My ribs and the cut on my head are healed fine. I’m not having any trouble remembering things from after the accident, and my motor skills are all fine. And no more headaches. Aside from not knowing who I am, I’m perfectly healthy.

“He says the hospital can try and organise somewhere for me to go. Like a halfway house I guess? Except I’m not a drug addict or anything like that. Just a place for me to stay until I can… ‘get back on my feet’ were the words he used.”

I’m leaning with my back against the window, hands loosely gripping the sill behind me and long legs casually stretched out in front of me.

Grant is sitting in the visitor chair, dressed in a business suit as always and watching me, listening to me complain and voice the fears rolling around inside my head.

“So basically the hospital can help get you going until you find somewhere to stay and can start building a new life.”

I nod, “Judith said she’d help out if I needed anything, but I don’t really want to burden her. I mean, it won’t be that hard to find a place to stay. What will be hard will be finding a way to pay for it. Finding a job when I literally have a blank resume.”

“You seem pretty qualified to me.”

“To do what though?” I sigh. I feel lazy and a little child-like; I’ve already had this conversation with Judith. At this point, I’m just whining.

Whining because no one came looking for me, no one showed up saying they knew who I was and could help me get home. So it means I have to start from scratch, all on my own.

“Why don’t you come work for me?”

My eyes, which were looking down at my socked feet, lift to look at him. Grant shrugs, “What? I’m sure a pretty thing like you could work anywhere she wanted. But if you’re looking for something similar to what you did before, I can get you in and get you on your feet.”

This isn’t him trying to flirt with me – well mostly not anyways, he always seems to be subtly flirting but I try to ignore it – this is him being honest.

“Really?”

“Bethany, I’d like to think that you see me as a good friend, not just some stranger who visits you in the hospital. I can get you a place to stay and a job down in the labs,” he shrugs again, like this is no big deal. He co-runs the company, it probably isn’t.

“You’d do that? You don’t even know me. You have no idea if I’m qualified to work for you, or even what kind of worker I am. Maybe I’m the laziest worker known to man.”

His grey eyes study me for a long moment. “I’m willing to take the chance.”


	7. Dim Half-light Dawn

_-Present Day-_

 

Walking into the lobby of my apartment building I wave at a neighbour as she leaves to walk her dog; her dog ignores me, I tripped over him once and he’s never forgiven me. I make my way towards the elevator and hit the call button, waiting the few seconds before it reaches my floor and dings as the doors open. I lean inside, press the button for the third floor and then the close button, and then leap back.

The beast stalls a few seconds longer before the doors begin to close. The minute they’re firmly sealed I take off, running to the stairwell and hopping up the first few stairs until I hit a rhythm of two at a time.

I enjoy racing the elevator. It makes coming home from work more enjoyable.

Only when I’m getting home though, I’ve learned that in the mornings when I’m half asleep I’m not always coordinated enough to run down the stairs.

That may or may not be the reason the dog hates me.

I’m stepping out of the stairwell just as the elevator dings that it’s arrived, and, puffing out a few breaths, am standing in front of it just as the doors open.

“Beat you today,” I chirp to the empty space before walking down the hall towards my apartment.

When I reach my door I shift my bag on my shoulder and dig around for my key; I can already hear Hobbes mewing at me from the other side of the door. When I find my key and open the door he slips into the hallway and bunts his massive head against my leg.

“Hey, mister man, how was your day?” I ask him, watching as he threads between my legs and leads me back inside.

Instead of answering politely he waits until I’ve closed the door behind me before yowling obnoxiously loud at me, demanding attention. His eyes glare at me unblinkingly from where he sits a few steps away, tail thumping impatiently against the floor.

“What’d up, Hobbes?”

He yowls once more before marching away. He doesn’t bother checking over his shoulder, he knows I’m going to follow.

My cat leads me into the kitchen, where I smile at the sight of his up-turned water dish. “Chasing shadows again?” I ask as I pick it up and go to refill it. He sits patiently at my feet, watching silently as I rinse it and refill it for him. When I put it back down next to his empty kibble bowl he stands and daintily begins drinking.

Following his lead I open the fridge and grab a bottle of water, drinking from it as I move around the apartment. I hang my coat up properly in its place on the back of a kitchen chair, dump my work bag on the coffee table, and flip on the radio.

Dancing back to the kitchen area I scoop Hobbes up off the floor and dump him on the counter as I set at making dinner for us. I bought one of those already cooked chickens from the store yesterday, so I’ll finish that with some salad, and cut off a few chunks to add to Hobbes’ kibble for his dinner. My man is a spoiled prince.

Hobbes is a pretty ridiculous-looking cat, to say the least. The vet says he’s mostly an Orange Maine Coon with a bit of something else thrown in; I usually tell people he’s a miniature orangutan.

He’s pretty chubby, but a lot of his size is just fur – like an orangutan. He’s got long fluffy hair that makes him look ten pounds heavier than he actually is, though he is pretty hefty. He’s light orange, with an all-white belly and darker orange patches on his back that make it look like he has giraffe print. And his ear, all four feet, muzzle, and the tip of his massively bushy tail are all white.

I say ear, because it kind of looks like he only has one; he’s got a big chunk missing from his left ear. He’s a rescue cat, so I don’t actually know how he lost part of his ear, but he seems to hear perfectly fine.

His eyes are all yellow like they’re supposed to be except for the bottom right corner of his right eye, which is blue. He’s like those dogs, Malamutes? Sometimes they have two different coloured eyes. Hobbes is kind of like that, except the eye that is supposed to be blue got confused and is mostly yellow except for the one-quarter.

Mostly he’s just a big, orange, fluffy beast. And, like an orangutan, he likes to climb. On everything. If I hadn’t lifted him he would have found a way to come and join me at the counter anyway, and probably end up breaking something in the process.

He paces back and forth a few steps before settling down to watch me – on the other side of the sink, not the part I’m standing at. I let him do as he wants most of the time, but I’d rather not have cat hair in my dinner.

I flick a piece of chicken at him before moving everything to the microwave. While it’s cooking I get myself a drink and the rest of the salad from last night. When the microwave’s done I drop some of the pieces of chicken into a bowl with his kibble and set it down for him and then take my own food and go sit on the couch.

I swear it’s like Hobbes inhales his food most of the time. In the time it takes me to sit, turn off the radio and turn on the television and find something to watch, Hobbes is already finished and jumping to sit on the back of the couch behind my head, purring loudly in my ear as I eat and hoping I give him more food. My man is a spoiled and very demanding prince.

Hobbes and I have our regular after-work routine we tend to follow day in and day out. After dinner we’ll lounge on the couch for a little bit, then I’ll let him out on the balcony to glare at the birds while I open my laptop and do some work things. Once it starts to cool off I go for an evening jog, and when I get back Hobbes is usually asleep on some piece of furniture he isn’t supposed to be on – on top of the fridge or the television, in the sink, places like that. Then its shower and sleep. Then get up, get ready, go to work, and do it all again. Rinse and repeat as needed.

During my run tonight I try very hard not to think about what Drew and I talked about during lunch today, but it’s no use. I’ve been working at the labs for five years now, and though everyone knows Grant got me the job initially, I moved up and made a name for myself on my own. And it seems like everyone also knows that Grant has a thing for me, and either pity me, envy me, or are disapproving of me because I ignore each and every one of his offers.

Grant is a flirt, with everyone. But for some reason, he has this fixation with me and won’t let it go. I have no interest in him; something inside me makes it feel like he rubs me the wrong way whenever he tries to get close to me.

Drew is right, I would be damn lucky if I ended up with Grant. But I can only just stand him most of the time.

I stay out longer than usual, running until my head feels as clear as it's going to get and my body feels like it’s buzzing with energy. I’m tired, my breath coming in short little gasps, but I feel good. I like moving. I like dancing and running and _moving_. I have all this energy and sometimes it feels like the only way I’ll calm down is if I can move to the beat going on inside me.

I wonder sometimes if this is a recent thing, or if I was like this before the accident too.

It’s late by the time I get back, finding Hobbes asleep in the bathroom sink. He squints at me as I enter the room and turn on the lights, yawns, and re-curls himself into a tighter ball.

“You are the strangest cat ever,” I tell him as I strip down, sighing contentedly as soon as the cool water hits my overheated skin.

When I'm finished and dressed in my sleep clothes I pick up the sleeping beast and move him onto the counter so I can brush my teeth. Immediately he begins batting the toothpaste lid across the counter while I scrub at my teeth. Then he chirps at me and bunts against my free hand, wanting attention. I pet him a few times, but have to shove him to the side at one point so I don’t spit toothpaste on him.

Hobbes follows me out of the bathroom and runs ahead to beat me into the bedroom, jumping up and curling into a sleepy ball at the foot of the bed.

I’m so glad he hasn’t learned yet that the pillows are the most comfortable part.

* * *

I gasp, sitting up in bed and breathing heavily. The blankets are twisted around me and my body is covered in sweat. My heart is pounding repeatedly against my chest, trying to break free so it too can run and hide.

Everything is black around me; it takes a few minutes to adjust to the darkness of my bedroom, and a few more to calm my breathing down to a normal pace.

There’s no warm body pressed against my feet, I must have been kicking out and forced Hobbes off the bed.

I get really bad dreams sometimes. Not, not nightmares exactly, but vivid and confusing dreams that leave me almost shaking when I wake up. I stay sitting up for a few moments longer, willing my heart rate to slow, before swinging my feet over the side of the bed and getting up. The floor is icy against my bare feet as I pad into the bathroom, intent on getting an aspirin. Dreams always mean bad headaches.

I don’t bother turning on the light, I just move through muscle memory. Open the medicine cabinet, grab the bottle on the end, pop the top and dump a pill into my palm. I reach for the spare glass I keep in here, fill it and toss back the pill. Then I make my way back to bed, crawling back into the warmth of the blankets and pillows.

The dreams are always the same. Things from my past, things I’m able to remember when I’m sleeping but that slip away as soon as I wake, leaving me feeling empty and longing for a way to hold onto them.

Some stick better than others, a house with a big front lawn and massive tree, a sea of nameless faces that should but don’t have names attached, a football field with blurs of moving red. Stages, where I can feel the heat from the bright lights beating down, the sound of laughter and splashing in a pool in the sun, the feel of a hand tugging mine.

They’re all there, the memories. They’re all still inside my head. I’m just trapped from reaching them; there’s a gate blocking me from getting too close to them.

They, the memories locked inside my dreams, they’re the reason it’s been five years and I’m still alone. They’re the reason I push Grant and anyone else trying to get closer than friendship away. Because the dreams haunt me, taunting me with my old life, not letting me move on. The emptiness inside my chest, preventing me from being happy, isn’t because I chose to forget. It’s because I can’t remember. It’s because I can’t remember as soon as I wake up.

The worst one is the singing. The music, the songs, the voice in my dreams. It’s the same one from when I first woke in the hospital. In my dreams the beauty of the melodies leaves me breathless, but as soon as I’m awake I can’t remember who is singing or what the lyrics are. Everything fades as soon as my eyes open. I can feel it, right there and tugging at my heart, begging me to remember, but I never do.

I know the voice is important, that it belongs to someone close to me, that their words are sung for me and me alone. But I can’t remember them. Their face and the words they’re singing are as clear as day when I’m asleep, with coy smiles and loving looks and a gentle tugging for me to come back to them. But as soon as I’m awake the words dull and blend together so I can’t make them out. As soon as I’m awake the face blurs, smudges so I can’t see them anymore.

The dreams don’t come every night, but they come often enough. The dreams – the people and places and things inside them – are trying to help me remember who I am. They don’t come every night, but when they do, they leave me curled in a tight ball on my bed, wishing I could remember.

* * *

When I get to work the next morning, Drew is already in my office.

“Why are you using my computer?”

“Mine broke,” he answers casually, not looking up at me. “I.T. hasn’t made their way over to look at it yet.”

“You know there is a whole room full of computers to run your sequence tests on, Drew?” I ask as I hang my coat up and slip on my lab coat. Drew, of course, isn’t in his. I enjoy wearing mine; Drew on the other hand only wears his strictly when necessary.

‘Why wear it if you’re sitting at a desk all day?’ he asked once. I said it was about the principle of things. He just rolled his eyes at me.

“I know, but yours already has everything I need.”

He’s sitting at my desk, so I stand at the other side, hands on my hips. “And what am I supposed to do?”

He shrugs, “Not my problem.”

“Move, Drew. I told Davis I’d try to have those new colony growth projections ready by-”

He waves me off, “Fine, fine. Send me away. I see how it is. You’re just jealous your brain isn’t near as big as mine.”

“You mean my head,” I say as he gets up and I drop into my chair, “My head isn’t near as big as yours.” I look away from him and at my screen. He wasn’t even working, he was playing Minesweeper.

“You beat my high score, didn’t you?” I growl, narrowing my eyes at him.

He smiles sweetly and plops himself down into the spare chair on the other side of my desk. “I smoked your high score, actually.”

I click the little icon to display the high scores. My name fills spots two through nine, his name sits above mine in first place, his time significantly faster than my highest score. Damn it.

I glare at him again and he smiles his dopy, happy smile, long hair falling in front of his eyes. “You can’t stay mad at me, B. I know you can’t.”

“This is for the mayo thing, isn’t it?” Of course it is.

“Of course it is,” he answers.

“You know it will take me forever to win enough times to wipe your name from here?” I ask him.

He shrugs, smiling innocently.

“I hate you.”

He waves my comment off again, “You love me.” His eyes light up suddenly, “Oh hey, did you hear the big news?”

“No,” I say, mentally scrolling through my calendar to make sure I didn’t miss anything important today. “What?”

“Some big head honcho corporate guy has a meeting with the Duncan’s today,” Drew answers, spinning to one side and then the other on the chair. Usually, people’s personal lab rooms have a wheely desk chair and regular chair for someone they’re meeting with to sit on. Drew and I only have wheely chairs in our rooms; we switched them out a few months ago. It was a whole stealth operation, replacing the swivel chairs in two of the private labs one floor above with the ones we didn’t want in our office.

We had to do this with five other rooms near mine and his office though, so no one would suspect it was us, obviously.

“What?” I ask him, wondering how this is relative to me.

He elaborates. “Some guy is coming by. Grant and his father are apparently signing with him in some investment partnership thing – I’m a scientist, I don’t know the bureaucratic details.” He smiles wickedly, “But I do know we may be getting the labs retrofitted.”

I let off an energetic fist pump. “New equipment!”

“I think you are missing my point though,” Drew says, looking sweetly at me.

I don’t like that look at all. Especially on Drew. Drew is a scientific genius, but he’s also a conniving evil genius. “And what’s that?”

“Head honcho corporate guy is probably going to want a tour of the place before he signs anything.”

“Drew, this point is still not pointy.”

“Grant’s probably going to be the one giving him the tour.”

I blink a few times, understanding immediately. “Shit.”

“Yeah.” He sounds almost sympathetic. Almost, but not quite. More like he feels bad but is also very much enjoying my pain.

“Damn, he’s going to do the stalker thing again,” I whine, pushing away from my desk and spinning my chair to look out through the glass window into the hallway, half expecting him to be standing right outside my door.

“B, he isn’t stalking you.”

And the argument from yesterday starts right up where it left off. “He won’t leave me alone,” I insist, spinning to face him. “He keeps trying to date me and I keep saying no so he just hangs outside my door and stalks me. He’s stalking me, Drew. Stalking me.”

“Whatever you say.”

“As your superior, I order you to go on lookout and warn me when he’s coming.”

He gawks at me, clearly not expecting me to say anything remotely similar to what just came out of my mouth. After a few seconds, he frowns stubbornly, “You’re not my superior.”

“I’ve worked here longer. And I’m older.” Now it’s my turn to shrug, “It’s close enough. So you, lookout, now.” I wave towards my door, “Tell me if he’s coming.”

“And what are you going to do if he comes? Hide?”


	8. Artie

“Shall we take you on a tour of the labs, then?” Nicholas Duncan asks him, smiling broadly.

“Sure,” Artie says good-naturedly.

Artie would really rather say no. Wheelchairs and science labs don’t really mix. He learned this in high school. For one, everything is really closely packed together. He’s an expert on manoeuvring his chair, he’s been doing it most of his life, but some places are more awkward than others.

Also, all the technical equipment? It tends to sit on tables and benches and counters. Which are hard to see over when you’re confined to a wheelchair. His tenth-grade science teacher always docked him marks because he couldn’t read the meniscus of the beakers properly; it isn’t his fault everything is above eye level for him.

But he’s here on business, so he supposes he should tour the lab. That’s what this whole deal is about. But still. He would _rather_ say no.

“Excellent!” Nicholas exclaims, bouncing up from his leather high-backed chair.

Artie isn’t really sure how to describe Nicholas Duncan. He’s an older man, hair well into its grey stages. He looks feeble and frail, like a gust of wind might blow him over and shatter him. But the man has energy.

He’s one of those elderly people who think they’re a lot younger than they are. The ones you cringe at and are constantly following a step behind to make sure they don’t tip too far to one side.

On the man’s desk, there’s a picture of him skydiving. And the picture looks pretty recent.

“Come on, come on,” Nicholas says, walking right past the cane leaning against his desk. His steps are surprisingly sure-footed. “You too, Grant,” he says, looking at his son, Grant Duncan, who was standing near the giant glass window looking out on the city of Phoenix during the meeting. “You know those labs better than I do.” Nicholas turns, looking at Artie and lifting a hand to cup around his mouth. “My son,” he stage-whispers, “spends a lot of time in the labs chasing after pretty women.”

Artie’s eyes flicker over to Grant, who’s looking at his father with a bored, unimpressed look on his face. Artie decides it’s probably better not to comment.

“Come on then,” Nicholas says, awkwardly hopping over to Artie and moving to grab the handles of his wheelchair. “Let’s go.”

He pushes Artie and his chair towards the door, pauses to open it, and then lurches forward, running at full speed down the hall, taking Artie along with him.

Full speed isn’t actually that fast, the man is no marathon runner. But it is still much faster than Artie is comfortable rolling down a carpeted hallway that ends abruptly with an elevator. Artie’s hands grip the sides of his chair tightly, wondering if the business deal will still go through if one of them gets injured.

Aside from the receptionist’s desk, they’re rolling away from, Grant and his father are the only ones with offices on this floor. But Artie figures that’s what happens when you own the company. You can have a floor all to yourself if you want.

Artie wishes he were as high up where he works as these men are here.

“Dad!” Grant calls disapprovingly from behind him. “Don’t kill the man.”

“Nonsense! Haven’t killed a man since the war!” He does slow down though, bringing them to a slower and slower pace until they stop neatly right in front of the elevator doors. “See, safe as houses.” He chuckles happily, “And it’s not like I could do you any real damage, eh my boy?”

Artie assumes that’s a jibe at his legs. He decides to ignore that and change the subject. “You were in the war, sir?” he asks, looking up and over his shoulder.

Grant appears and punches the call button for the elevator with more force than necessary. “No, he wasn’t.” He sighs. “My father has an over-active imagination.”

“Imagination’s as healthy as carrots, young man,” Nicholas says to him with a twinkle in his eyes.

“You say that about money,” Grant sighs.

The old man laughs, “I say that about women and sex too!” Artie’s eyes widen but he keeps his mouth firmly closed. “Speaking of, Brenda!”

Artie manoeuvres his chair to see what Nicholas is looking at; the receptionist is making her way down the hall, looking concerned.

“Mr Duncan,” she says, looking at Nicholas, “Your eleven o’clock is here,” she says, nodding back towards her desk where someone is standing, waiting to meet with the old man.

Nicholas’ eyes widen comically, grey eyebrows rising, as he lifts his arm to look at his watch. “Eleven o’clock already!”

“He’s early,” the receptionist says. “But if you take Mr Abrams on a tour you’ll run late.”

“Fine, fine,” he says, stepping away from Artie. “Grant, you can handle a tour on your own, can’t you?” 

“Oh course, Dad.”

“Good, good. Alright then.” He reaches to shake Artie’s hand. “Was a pleasure meeting you, young man. I hope we’ll be doing business in the future.”

Artie gives the man’s hand a good shake, “I hope so too, sir.”

“Alright, I’m off. Toodles!” Then he takes off down the hallway. Not running this time, thankfully.

Once they’re alone Grant says, “You’ll have to excuse my father. He can be a bit… bracing.”

“Energetic,” Artie says as the elevator doors open and he wheels himself in.

Artie is currently at Duncan BioTech as a representative of his company. He works for a place that manufactures electronic equipment for all kinds of big businesses. His company and Duncan BioTech are working out a business deal, which includes a retrofitting of the Duncan research labs.

Artie himself isn’t exactly in charge of the deal. That would be his boss. But his boss is a single parent whose son is undergoing cancer treatment, so he picked Artie to oversee everything since he’s out of the office because his son is in the hospital. Artie was happy to accept the offer. It isn’t a promotion exactly, but if he can manage this, it is sure to win him even more respect from his boss. And _that_ could lead to a promotion.

He doesn’t really want the promotion for the money exactly. He more wants it to have something new to do. He’s been doing the same job for years now. He wants to move up and do something different.

The elevator dings and the door slide open. Artie rolls himself out, Grant walking next to him.

The first thing he notices when they arrive at the labs is just how very clean the place is. If Artie had to describe the labs to his boss, the first word would be clean.

The second word would be glass.

And the third word would be white.

The hallways are all painted white and are brightly lit. All the rooms have glass walls to see inside. The floors under his wheels are all spotlessly clean.

There are people walking around and working inside the glass rooms in various states of lab attire; some are in lab coats and goggles and gloves, some are in regular business attire, some are in casual clothes. One man’s lab coat is bright yellow, Artie can see him working at a machine inside one of the glass lab rooms.

Grant tours him around the floor, pointing out different sections and research areas. Different wings of the floor are devoted to different projects. He says they’ll only stay on this floor, but that this isn’t the only research and development floor. On this floor, each of the rooms seems to have different functions. There are rooms that have counters and cupboards with glassware and hands-on research equipment, some have bigger data processing machines, and some are devoted just to any and all forms of storage. It’s all very intimidating for Artie, who hasn’t been in a lab since high school. And even then, that wasn’t very impressive. McKinley High School was known for its athletics, maybe, but not its science department.

They pop inside a few of the rooms, and Artie can see that though the labs are high tech, not all their equipment is; some of their machines are outdated, if by only a few years. Which is exactly why Artie’s here. Duncan BioTech is well off, but it needs a retrofit.

As they make their way down the hall, the rooms seem to change from laboratory research rooms to personal research spaces; with rooms that look like office spaces, with a desk and a computer or two. Other areas have rooms with banks of computers.

They’re walking down the hall when someone’s head pop’s out of one of the rooms. “Grant! Hi!” the man says very loudly. In one of the lab rooms across and down the hall a little ways, Artie sees through the glass as a woman jumps and then drops down behind a desk.

“Adams,” Grant says dully, looking at the man hanging in the door frame. Behind the man, Artie can see a very neat office space. There’s a desk with three computer screens, and in the background, there are cabinets and a bookshelf lining the wall. Aside from the biology-related posters on the walls, the room could almost be one out of the building where Artie works.

“Hey,” the man responds. He’s got a mop of shaggy brown hair on his head, but he smiles at Artie. “Heard there was a tour going on. Hi,” he offers his hand. “Drew Adams.”

“Artie Abrams.”

Grant sighs, but gives an introduction, “Drew is one of our newest researchers.”

“And on the way to becoming the best,” Drew interrupts.

Grant ignores him, “We don’t normally hire people so young to work for us.”

Drew cuts in again, “But I’m a genius, so they had to make an exception.”

Grant turns from looking at Artie to looking at Drew full-on, “Do you have something important to report to me, or do you have work to get back to?”

“There’s always work to be had, Grant my man,” Drew says, wearing a goofy smile and winking at Artie. “And it’s always good to see you.” The way he says that sounds so very forced to Artie’s ears.

“I’ll bet. Is Bethany in her office?”

Artie watches as Drew seems to sputter, “Um. Well. Yeah, yeah she’s in there. But she’s in the middle of sequencing-”

“That will be all,” Grant says, taking the handles of Artie’s wheelchair and directing him down the hall – towards the room where Artie watched the woman duck behind her desk. Artie looks over his shoulder and waves at the man still hanging in the door frame, smiling in amusement when he sees Drew making faces behind Grant’s back.

Maybe this lab thing isn’t so different from high school.

Grant stops pushing Artie’s chair as they come to a stop outside of one of the private office spaces; Artie realizes it makes sense, they have lots of different areas to do all their research, but they’re going to need space to sit and work with it and draw whatever conclusions they make from it.

Grant knocks against the door frame, “Bethany?”

Inside the office space, there’s a desk facing the doorway, two separate computer screens rest atop it, as well as a few scattered stacks of paper. Along one wall Artie can see low cabinets with glass doors – inside are all kinds of things Artie would expect in a lab, like glass vials and tubes. The top of the cabinet is a counter with a workspace with a few random items – including a wooden duck - and above are shelves stuffed full of binders and textbooks. The other wall has a counter with two different microscopes, a centrifuge machine, and another machine Artie couldn’t name if he tried.

There’s a heavy sigh and then a muffled response of, “Yes?” The woman is under her desk. Artie can see her chair moving as she bumps into it.

“It’s Grant. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.” He nods his head for Artie to enter and then he follows inside after.

The woman doesn’t get out from under her desk.

“Bethany?” Grant asks. “Are you alright?”

“Mmm, yep! Just… uh… dropped… my pen?” She sounds a little unsure of her answer. Maybe she doesn’t want company?

“If you’re busy, we can come back later?” Artie offers, looking up at Grant for confirmation.

A blonde head pops up from the desk before the woman quickly jumps to her feet. “No, no. Sorry, I just… uh. Yeah. Hi.” She smiles brightly at him. “I didn’t realise Grant had someone with him. Hi.”

“Artie Abrams, this is Bethany Manning, one of our top researchers.”

“Hi,” she repeats, smiling at him.

Artie freezes.

There is something so, so wrong with this picture.

Artie is about eighty percent sure that his mouth is hanging open, seventy-five percent sure that if he weren’t in a wheelchair his legs would have given out, and one hundred percent sure he must look like he’s seen a ghost.

Which he has.

Brittany Pierce is standing behind the desk.

Brittany blinks at him, her face growing confused. “Hi?”

Artie can’t quite bring himself to speak, he’s too busy staring. Brittany. He is staring at Brittany. Brittany is alive.

Brittany is alive and standing here, in the same room as him, looking at him like everything is fine and dandy.

But he’s looking at Brittany, who’s been missing for years, so clearly everything is _not fine and dandy._

Grant seems to have realised something’s not right. “Mr Abrams, are you alright?”

Brittany chews her lip, “Oh God, do I have under-the-desk dirt on my face?”

“You…” Artie finally manages to spit out. “You’re alive.”

Grant steps further into his peripheral vision, a confused look on his face. “What?”

Brittany squints at him, “I’m sorry?” She looks over her shoulder, as if checking to make sure he’s talking to her and not someone standing behind her. When she looks back she still wears a confused face. “Is that a trick question?”

Artie wonders if this is what an out-of-body experience feels like. He can see himself, staring at Brittany. He can see the look on his own face, his eyes wide behind his glasses, his mouth hanging open. He can see the way his head hangs forward a little, in awe.

He feels like he’s floating, like the world just suddenly disappeared out from under him and his wheelchair. It’s dizzying, and for a moment the confusion sweeps so heavily over him he wonders if he’s going to black out.

The world rights itself again just as suddenly. And again, he’s sitting here, staring at Brittany.

But Artie realises something. It isn’t that he’s staring at Brittany. It’s that Brittany is staring back, with absolutely no recollection of him on her face. She’s looking at him like he’s a complete stranger.

That’s what scares him.

“What are you doing here?” he asks her.

She still looks confused by his questions, “I work here? I’m sorry, I don’t… do I know you?”

His eyes widen further.

“It’s Artie,” he says slowly, like maybe it’s just that his words aren’t making a connection inside her head. If he slows down she’ll be able to process them better. She looks so lost, maybe if he tries again but slower his words will connect the way he needs them to. “Artie. From high school?”

Nothing is making sense right now, and generally, Artie likes it when the world makes sense.

“You…” he tries, “You don’t…?”

“I’m sorry, you must be mistaken,” Brittany says to him, a sad smile on her face.

Artie has imagined seeing Brittany again, finally finding her, like he knows the others have. But he never imagined it going like this.

She opens her mouth to speak again, but Grant’s phone buzzes. He takes it from his pocket and reads what’s on the screen. “I hate to cut this short,” he says like he isn’t really that sorry at all. “But Mr Abrams, your ride is here.”

Artie has to leave? He has to leave, right now? Right now when Brittany is standing here in a lab coat?

“Shall I escort you upstairs?” Grant asks easily, like he’s unaware of just how much confusion Artie and Brittany both seem to be swimming in.

Without waiting for an answer, Grant grasps the handles of Artie’s chair and begins to lead him away. That’s one of the few things Artie hates about his wheelchair, that people can dictate where he goes without his permission.

“Wait!” he starts, because he is desperate to figure this out, to know what’s going on. Is it possible Brittany has a twin no one knew about? Separated at birth? Or is she in witness protection and is pretending not to know him? There has to be some sort of logical explanation and he needs to grab at it with both hands.

He wheels himself towards Brittany, who takes a hesitant step back, looking unsure. Artie realises he can’t just start bombarding her with questions like this, she has work to do and he needs to get back to the office. But he needs to understand.

It’s been five years since anyone’s seen her, he needs to understand.

Artie pulls a business card from his chest pocket and holds it out to her, hoping to God she takes it. “Call me, please,” he insists. If this isn’t Brittany and is simply some look-alike then he’ll be making a fool of himself. But if it is her, or her twin, or she’s pretending not to know him, or she’s a spy or something ridiculous but it it’s still her then he needs to see her again, to figure out what happened to her.

Brittany reaches out a careful hand to take the card from him, looking more like she’s appeasing him than actually considering calling him.

“Please, Brittany,” he forces out, making eye contact with her and hoping his desperation gets across to her, “Please, call me.”


	9. Pinned

Something really weird happened today. Really, really weird.

It kind of caught me off guard, so I probably didn’t act the best way possible. But it was so unexpected, I was frozen, I didn’t know how to react. I’m pretty sure I just stood there, a dumbstruck look on my face.

Someone recognised me today; some guy that was on a tour of the labs with Grant. They stopped by my office so Grant could spend time stalking me under the cover of introducing me to someone. I had tried hiding under the desk but when that didn’t work out I gave up and stood up to face them.

The man, Grant introduced him as Artie, was in a wheelchair. Dark hair, glasses, dress pants and shirt. And he recognised me, he knew me from somewhere.

At the time, it kind of threw me. When I’m at work, I forget that there are empty places inside my head. My work is somewhere I’ve built up for myself, something mine, where everything is familiar and makes sense. When I’m there, I get distracted and forget that the life I’m living is just something I’ve built recently, that there is more behind it. When I’m at work, I’m Bethany.

It isn’t until I get home that everything hits me, that Bethany is only someone I’ve created, that she isn’t fully me. It’s when I get home and I see the empty house, with few personal touches, that it washes over me. It’s when I get home that I can hear the echoes of voices inside my head, that the memories of my dreams resurface and remind me that I’m missing something inside myself.

He surprised me; he caught me off guard in a place where I’m not the girl who forgets. That’s who I was at the hospital, that’s who I am at home. But at work, I’m not that person, and it threw me when he started saying he knew me, because me, the work me, didn’t know him even though he said I did.

I’m so accustomed to not remembering that it’s second nature now.

But that’s why I acted really stupidly when Artie realised he knew me. Instead of explaining that I didn’t remember anything, I just kind of stood there wondering why this crazy guy in a wheelchair was insisting I knew him.

Whoops.

It wasn’t until a good five minutes after he’d left and I’d sat at my desk replaying the scene over and over in my head that I realised that he was probably right, that he did know me. That I just didn’t know him.

It’s been five years since the accident. Five years and no one has ever said they remember me. I was beginning to think it wasn’t going to happen, I had accepted it. And then it actually does happen and I go and ruin it because I forget that I don’t remember.

God, I must have really freaked him out.

When I got home from work I changed clothes, switched from my work shoes to a pair of sneakers, and went for a run. A long, long run, where the only thing I focused on was the dry air around me and the feeling of my feet pounding the sidewalk. I had needed to clear my head, because this was big.

Someone recognised me.

I got home about ten minutes ago, and haven’t moved since. I’m sitting here on top of my kitchen counter, a bottle of water in one hand, the mystery guy’s business card in the other. Hobbes is sitting on top of the microwave, sleeping.

Artie Abrams. He works in an office that sells software and parts to other companies.

It sounds kind of dull, but then again, I don’t really know what I was doing with my life five years ago, so who am I to judge?

Taking a long gulp of water, I play with the card, debating how to call. ‘Hi, you met me today but I didn’t remember you at the time. Sorry about that. Do you know who I am?’ That seems a little forceful. And confusing. The poor guy is probably already confused as hell.

If Drew were here, he’d tell me to call.

I probably should call.

I want to call, but… I’m a little nervous.

What if I… what If I don’t like what he tells me? What if I don’t like… me?

I reach for my phone, but hesitate in dialling the numbers. Is this actually real? Did this guy really recognise me? Does he know who I am?

Am I about to find out who I really am? Who I was five years ago and then forgot?

I dial half the numbers and then end the call. It’s a little nerve-wracking. I really had gotten to the point where I never thought this would happen. It’s surreal feeling, knowing this man might be able to help me.

Imagining Drew’s glare if I told him I chickened out and didn’t call, I dial again, this time hitting all the numbers.

Artie himself doesn’t answer, does well enough for himself that he has a receptionist.

Not what I need to be focusing on right now.

“Um, hi.” I begin, completely unsure of what to say. “I… I was told to call this number…”

The woman lets out a breath, waiting for me to say something intelligible.

“I… I’m looking for Artie?”

_“Oh,”_ she says. _“Are you the woman he gave his card to earlier?”_

Her words catch me off guard, but I manage to stumble out a, “Yes. Yes, that’s me.”

She laughs _, “I don’t really know what he was going on about when he got in today, but he said if you called to make an appointment with him as soon as possible. He really wants to speak with you.”_

“R-right.” This is so weird. I’m calling to make an appointment to find out who I am.

I look over at the calendar hanging on the side of the fridge; today’s Friday. “Does he work on Saturdays?”

_“He’ll be in tomorrow actually, yes,”_ she chirps happily _. “How’s nine o’clock work for you?”_

“Um, fine? I guess that’s okay?”

_“Can I get your name?”_ the woman asks right as I’m going to end the call.

I don’t remember what he called me today. I’m sure he called me something other than Bethany, but I can’t remember what he said. I was a little distracted with trying to figure out what was going on. “Um… just… just tell him it’s the blonde girl he met today.”

I hit the end button on the phone before she can argue.

* * *

It’s big and bright at Artie’s office. The secretary, I realise, is in charge of scheduling things for a few different people who all work in the same hallway as Artie does. She works at a big, round desk. It loops in a big circle and she sits in the middle, talking into a headset and tapping away at a computer. The inside of the loop probably has all her work things, but on the top of the counter, there’s brightly coloured in-and-out boxes, a bowl of candies, and a mug that says “I love my hubby, Mr Coffee” with a bunch of pens sticking out of it.

She smiles good-naturedly at me when I tell her I’m there to see Artie, and she buzzes his office room while speaking to someone else on the phone at the same time, she’s also turned so her body is typing on the keyboard but she’s looking at a separate monitor. The woman is like, super good at multitasking.

Someone clears their throat. I turn, and the man in the wheelchair from earlier is there. He’s in a different suit, but he looks tired and his glasses a little astray on his face. It makes me feel guilty, clearly, he knows me, and probably stayed up late thinking about the interaction with me the day before, killing himself trying to understand what happened.

He’s looking at me with a guarded look, careful not to let me see whatever he’s feeling. He nods for me to follow him, and then turns his chair and rolls down the hall.

I stare at the back of his head as we walk down the hall, ignoring the swirling voices all around. People stand in doorways or in the hall or in their offices, talking on phones or with other people. Along the left is an open area, with cubicles of people working. Their voices are low individually, but they swirl together and make me feel like I’m walking into a bee hive. Everything feels busy.

Along the right are doors to private offices, and Artie leads me into one a little ways down the hall. The room is bigger than my workspace, that’s the first thing I notice. He has a low, dark wood L-shaped desk – it’s lower than most desks, but that’s probably because he’s in a wheelchair. There’s also a small leather couch and a chair along the far wall, though that’s probably for other people, not him. He also has a really big window that I wander towards. I can see the people on the street walking below, rushing this way and that. His office is high enough up that the view is nice. I kind of wish my room had a window. None of the rooms on the lab floors have windows.

He clears his throat and I turn around to look at him. He looks nervous now, unsure of what to do. “Hey,” I offer, figuring that’s a good place to start.

His lips tighten. “Um… hi.”

We’re never going to get anywhere if he keeps holding back whatever he wants to say, hiding what he’s feeling. I let the first words that come to mind tumble from my lips as an icebreaker, “You’re secretary reminds me of an octopus.”

His eyes widen in confusion so I try to explain further, “You know, with all the arms?” I wave my arms as a demonstration. “Doing too many things at once…?”

He stares at me for a long moment before saying, “The similarity is uncanny.”

“Um. I’m sorry?”

“You… You’re just like her. You look and sound exactly like her. Are you…” I can see he’s trying to push himself to just say whatever he needs to say, even though part of him wants to hold back. “Do you have a twin sister? Maybe you were separated at birth?”

“I don’t have a twin sister.” His face falls. “That I know of.”

“That you know of?”

I pace around the room a few steps, not exactly sure how to tell him. I can feel his eyes following me. Eventually, I drop heavily to the leather couch and he spins his wheelchair to face me.

“I don’t… I don’t remember. I don’t _know._ I… I was in an accident. A few years ago, I was hit by a car. I can’t remember anything from before it happened.”

His head lifts, eyebrows dropping slightly as first he takes in what I’ve said, then the corners of his lips dropping as the understanding hits him. “That’s why you didn’t recognise me.”

I nod. “That’s why I didn’t recognise you. I don’t remember you. I don’t remember _me._ The accident was five years ago but no one has ever recognised me, no one has ever been able to tell me about myself, who I was before I got hurt.”

His hands clench in his lap. His eyes drift away for a few seconds before finding me again. “You don’t remember anything?”

“No,” I answer, feeling my hair brush against my neck as I shake my head.

His face falls. “I… I can’t believe it. All this time. You disappeared. You disappeared without a trace; we didn’t know what happened to you. We… we thought you were dead, or that you had left… God, I think Santana thought you had…”

“Who’s Santana?”

The way his face almost seems to crumble under the weight of my question squeezes my heart painfully. Artie gives me the most pitying, heartbreaking look I’ve ever seen. His lips part and he lets out a slight breath; he can’t believe the words I’ve just spoken.

I don’t know why this question hurts him, and I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know him. Or, well, I know him, but I don’t remember knowing him. I don’t know if it’s okay to reach out and touch him, to try to comfort him. I have no idea if me touching him would help ground him or push him farther away.

Artie closes his eyes for a long moment, and when he opens them he seems to have pushed back some of his pain. “Santana… she was someone who cared a lot about you.”

“Oh,” I say, unsure how else to respond.

“I can’t believe you’re alive. That you’ve been here all this time.” He shakes his head, “My God, Brittany, I’m just glad you’re-”

“Brittany?”

He nods sadly at me, “That’s your name.”

“Brittany,” I repeat, testing it out. Right away I know that it’s right, the way it feels inside. It anchors inside me like the word knows its place, its home within me, even if I don’t. “I was close.”

“What?”

“I didn’t have any ID with me when I got to the hospital. And when no one came looking for me… I picked my own name. I was going by Bethany. It was close.”

He barks a laugh, giving me a smile that is both happy and sad. He whispers, “God, I’ve missed you.” Then louder, addressing me properly, he says, “You didn’t have any ID?”

“No. All I know is that it was raining and I was hit by a car. I didn’t have a bag or a wallet with me, so they didn’t know what to call me. I didn’t have anything with me to identify myself, and no one came looking for me.”

He shakes his head, “No. No, I’m sure they did. Quinn… Quinn came down to help Santana look for you when you first went missing. I’m sure they checked hospitals.”

My face must look confused, so he continues. “I don’t know the whole story. I couldn’t make it down there right away, I visited a few months later, after Santana had… after you’d been gone a while. But you… you and Santana had an argument, and she went away for a work trip. When she got back, you were gone. A small bag packed, a bus ticket. That was it. But no sign of you. It was like you just… dropped off the face of the earth. We didn’t know if something had happened to you or if you had wanted to leave, to disappear.”

His hands move from where they rest in his lap to play with the sides of his chair restlessly. It must have been really hard, not knowing what had happened to me.

“You…” I say, trying to distract him from the heaviness of the conversation. “When we met yesterday… you said you knew me from school?”

“High school,” he corrects. “We, um, actually, we dated for a while.”

“Yeah?”

He nods, “And we were in a glee club together. Like a show choir? Lots of dancing and singing.”

I can’t help it that my eyes drop to his chair when he says dancing.

“Hey, I was a pretty good dancer,” he insists, rolling his eyes. “Don’t judge the chair. But I wasn’t like you though.”

“Me?”

“Brittany, you were one of the best dancers our school had ever seen. You were phenomenal.”

“Oh.” I’m not really sure how to take the compliment. “So. Brittany. I’m Brittany. I was a dancer and in a glee club.” I pause, trying to see if I’ve missed anything he’s told me. “What was my full name, Brittany what?”

“Brittany Pierce,” he answers automatically.

I nod, committing this to memory. I have a name now. A real one. _My_ real one. “Brittany Pierce.”

“Oh,” he stumbles. “That’s not, no, wait.”

“What?”

“You… you were married. I mean, Pierce isn’t your full last name anymore.”

I feel my eyes blink a few times in surprise. Married. I was… I had never really thought about that before. That I may have been seeing someone, but I never really thought about if I had been married. If I didn’t come home one night and someone I was married to didn’t know what happened to me.

“Married?” I whisper. “I… I don’t have a wedding ring. I wasn’t wearing one when they found me.”

I’m afraid my words may have broken him, with the look he gives me. The little light he had in his eyes from seeing me drains completely. His whole face, his whole body, it all goes slack, like a balloon that’s been defeated. I’ve deflated him. This one statement, and I’ve broken him somehow.

Eventually, he just nods sadly, “Brittany Pierce-Lopez. You … you and Santana…” he trails off, probably hesitant about my reaction.

A woman. I was married to a woman. I can feel the slightest smirk creeping up. Go me. Drew would be proud.

No wonder I never really liked Grant. Besides the fact that he was a creepy, stalker man anyway.

And then the smile drops when I replay what he said seconds before, that we had an argument and then I just left. I know I was hit by a car, and that was why I didn’t come back. Because I couldn’t remember how. But I don’t know why I would have left in the first place.

God, that must have killed her. Not knowing where I was or why I left.

“She didn’t know what happened to me?”

He bites his lips slightly, “No.”

“Oh.”

“She…” he shakes his head and exhales.

I feel heavy, knowing this. I’ve wanted it for so long now, to know who I was. To know the person I had been and the people in my life. And I’ve thought about what they must have thought, me not coming home. No one ever looked for me, no one ever came to the hospital asking if a tall, blonde woman had been admitted.

But I’d never considered the idea that I had been devoted to someone when I got hurt, what they must have gone through. If what I went through was hard, what this woman must have suffered through… not knowing if I had up and left her or…

My emotions press down on me, guilt I can’t control bubbling up. I feel heavy and thick and uncomfortable inside.

“What about the rest of my family?” I force myself to ask.

He looks startled. “Family?” he chokes out.

“My… my parents? Do I have siblings? Were… were they worried about me?”

He shakes his head to himself, “Oh. Oh, right. You have a sister, a few years younger. And yeah, you have parents. I haven’t seen them in a little while though, not since the last time I went home for a visit.”

“Where’s that?” Where did I grow up?

“Lima. It’s in Ohio. You and Santana made your way to California after graduation.” He frowns, thinking. Then his frown grows as he remembers, “I don’t know if Santana was the one to tell your parents or not. That may have been Quinn or Kurt, one of them told your parents you were missing. When you left… Santana… she…”

He doesn’t need to explain. I can’t… I can’t even imagine what she must have gone through. What she or my parents or my friends all went through. Not knowing where I was or why I left. Just knowing I was… gone.

“I don’t… I mean, I don’t know what happened. But I’m sorry I had you all so worried.”

Artie shakes his head animatedly, insisting, “No, Brittany. I’m just happy you’re okay. I’m glad you’re alive.” He wheels himself towards the couch slightly and then stops abruptly. “Can… God, this is so stupid. Can I give you a hug?”

This, despite everything I’m feeling all at once, makes me smile. “Yeah,” I say, getting up and crouching in front of him. He doesn’t hesitate, he wraps his arms tightly around me, squeezing like he may never get to hug me again.

He’s probably afraid he may not.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” he whispers again as he pulls back. His eyes are damp.

“I’m sorry I-”

He cuts in before I can finish what I want to say, “Don’t. You got hit by a car, that wasn’t your fault.” I watch as his eyes roam up and down over me, first over my face and then over all of me, taking in all the changes. It’s been five years, I can’t look exactly the same as I did; I’m not even the same person anymore, not really. I’m Bethany now. It must be so weird for him.

“What did I do for a living?”

“What?” he asks.

“My… my job. What did I do before the accident?”

“You were a nurse.”

Score. “That was one of my guesses,” I smile. “Nurse, doctor, or science teacher maybe. I work at the lab now, but I knew I must have done something similar before.”

He nods, “You were really good at it. It… it suited you, taking care of people. The studying and getting there was hard, but you really loved your job.”

I smile. A nurse would definitely have been a good fit.

“You really don’t remember? Anything about before?”

I shake my head gently, “No. Nothing about who I was.”

“I have pictures!” he bursts out suddenly, quickly wheeling himself away from me and behind his desk to reach his computer.

“Pictures? Of what?”

“Of you,” he says like I should have gotten that. “I have a few pictures on here, family and friends and stuff. Hang on,” he instructs as he starts tapping away.

There’s an empty chair sitting near the window. I stand and drag it over to his desk, staying on the opposite side from him – there’s isn’t a whole lot of room to sit next to him behind his desk with his wheelchair taking up so much of the space.

“Here,” he says proudly, spinning the computer screen for me to see.

I gasp.

It’s a picture of a bunch of teenagers crowded around a trophy. Artie is in his wheelchair in the centre of the group, and an older man crouched down near him holding the trophy. The rest of the group surrounds them. I look at the people, studying each of their faces, as if trying to remember them.

I stare at my own face the longest.

I’m in some form of uniform, standing right behind Artie, another girl in the same uniform next to me. I’m smiling really big, hair pulled back and with side-swept bangs. I stare and stare and stare at the grin I’m wearing, shocked. It’s me. This, this person, she’s me.

Artie speaks, “It’s from when we won our first glee competition. Sectionals.”

“How old?”

“You’re a sophomore.”

“Wow.”

He clicks his mouse and the picture changes. Me and him and an Asian couple – they were in the glee club picture – sitting at some sort of desk with a scoreboard on it. We’re all smiling at the camera, Artie has a fist in the air, cheering. There are nametags in front of each of us. I read them all, but only take in one: Brittany S. Pierce.

“The Brainiacs. We won the academic decathlon.”

I smile, not looking away from the screen. “That’s pretty cool.”

He nods, “It so was.”

It was hard in the beginning – it still is now – looking in the mirror and not recognizing who I saw. But this, this is an even stranger feeling. Because I’m not just looking at my reflection. I’m looking at me, at another me, living a life that I can’t remember. Like some sort of twisted déjà vu. I can see that the pictures are of me, but I have no memory of them.

He flips through three more pictures. A group shot of the glee club; some of its members in graduation gowns. Everyone has happy tears in their eyes. Then there’s one of me and Artie, up close and making ridiculous faces at the camera.

The last one looks more recent, like it was taken after high school. It’s of Artie and me and another girl; she was the other one in uniform in the first picture. We’re sitting on a patio of a restaurant – I can see other tables and people in the background. Artie looks like he’s trying to ignore us and smile for the camera, the other girl is grinning right at me and ignoring the camera, and I’m in the middle of a laugh.

“That’s Santana,” he says.

My eyes widen and I take a harder look at her, this stranger I married once upon a time.

She’s Hispanic, long dark hair and tanned skin. Her teeth are bright and her eyes squinting as she laughs at the me in the picture. She has a small frame and is sitting casually at the table with us, leaning so her arm rests over the back of my chair.

She’s beautiful, really.

“She…” I can’t finish, because I don’t know what to say.

He spins the screen back in place and laughs slightly, “Yeah. She is. You two were made for each other.”

“Where,” I try, my throat tightening. “Where is she now?”

“Still in California,” he answers. Then his head snaps up and his eyes widen, “Shit, I should call her! She doesn’t know you’re alive.” He begins moving things around on his desk, searching under papers for something. “She should know. Oh my God, she needs to know you’re alive.”

“She’d want to know?”

He pauses in his scrambling to look at me like I just asked the most obvious question in the world. “Yes,” he says, nodding his head very slowly, forcing eye contact with me.

Then he looks back down at his desk and retrieves his cell phone from under a file folder. I watch silently as he scrolls through it, looking for her number.

My heart isn’t beating, it’s throwing itself madly against my chest like some sort of rabid dog, trying to beat its way free of my body.

“Damn it,” he curses, “I don’t have it. Shit, I thought I did.” He sighs heavily before looking at me, making sure I’m still there. “Rachel,” he says flatly. “If anyone has contact with everyone from glee, it’s her.”

While he dials I sit and wonder which one from the first picture he showed me Rachel was.

“Okay, here,” he says, pulling the phone away from his ear and setting it down on the desk while hitting the speaker button.

_“Hello, this is Linda James for Miss Rachel Berry.”_

“Hi, this is Artie Abrams, I’d like to-”

_“If you are a reporter asking about the back stage incident,”_ Rachel’s manager snaps, _“then I would like to stress Miss Berry’s insistence that she has no comment on what transpired.”_

“Um,” Artie blinks for a few seconds, confused. “No, I’m not a reporter. I was actually just wondering if I could get in contact with Rachel. It’s about-”

The woman cuts Artie off again. _“Miss Berry will be giving her debut performance in her new role tomorrow night and has arranged for a fan signing after the show. You can get a picture with her then, sir.”_

Artie looks a little peeved but tries again, “No. I’m an old friend of Rachel’s. From high school. I need to speak with her, it’s very import-”

_“Sir, if I gave Miss Berry’s personal number to every man who claimed to have gone to school with her, then enough people to fill every inch of Madison Square Garden twice over would have her number. I’m sure you can see the problem with that.”_

“No,” Artie insists. “I really did go to school with her. Look, this is important, please, I just need to talk with her.”

_“I’m sorry, sir, I can’t do that. Have a good day.”_ Then she hangs up.

I stare down at the phone on the desk, wondering what kind of job this Rachel woman has that she has her own assistant. “That was kind of rude.”

Artie shakes his head as if to brush off what just happened and picks up his phone again. He scrolls through his contacts again, mumbling to himself. Then his eyes light up, “Kurt,” he says. “Kurt will have it.”

He dials, and I can hear it ring once before going right to a voicemail service. Artie gives an annoyed growl.

I can’t tell if I’m getting more or less anxious that we can’t seem to get in contact with Santana. I want to, but I’m also a little hesitant. What exactly is Artie going to say? ‘Oh, hey, guess what? I found your wife?’ It seems so… impersonal.

“Well?” I ask, seeing as how his second option of contacting Santana didn’t work either.

His face scrunches slightly as he thinks to himself, but I can see he has another idea. “I don’t know where exactly Santana’s living so I can’t look her up, but…” he trails off as he taps a few things into his computer. I can’t see what he’s doing, but he must have looked up a number because once he’s done searching he picks up the phone and dials what he sees on the screen. Then he puts it down on the desk between us as it rings.

_“Hello, Hummel Tires and Lube,”_ a gruff voice answers. _“This is Charlie.”_

“Hi,” Artie says. “I’m looking for Finn, is he around?”

_“Yeah, hold on.”_ I can hear the sound of the man covering the mouthpiece before yelling, _“Yo, Hudson!”_

There’s a few seconds of waiting while the phone is passed between people and a new voice answers happily, _“Hello?”_

Artie smiles, he’s finally getting somewhere. “Finn? Finn, its Artie.”

_“Artie, man! How’s it going?”_

“Um, alright. You?”

_“Not bad, not bad. What’s up? Haven’t heard from you in a while.”_

“It’s actually… I’m trying to get in contact with Santana.”

The man on the other ends pauses a second, _“Santana?”_ He sounds skeptic, as if it’s surprising Artie would go to him with such a request.

“Yeah. Do you have her number, or know someone who would have it? I tried calling Rachel to give me it, but her manager-”

_“That new woman? Jesus she’s horrible,”_ Finn grumbles. _“Woman run’s Rachel’s life like some sort of army camp. I’d love to meet her one day and yell at her, see how she likes it.”_

“Uh, right,” Artie says, trying to pull the conversation back to where he wants it. “So Rachel was no luck. You don’t happen to have Santana’s number, do you?”

_“No, man. Sorry.”_

“I tried calling Kurt to get it but it went right to-”

Finn laughs. _“Kurt and Blaine are stuck in Japan at the moment, dude.”_

“Japan?”

_“It’s a long story.”_ The other man pauses, thinking for a moment before offering, _“I have Quinn’s number though. She should be able to help.”_

“That would be great,” Artie replies. He picks up a pen off his desk and scribbles the number Finn relays to him onto the back of a memo. “Thanks, Finn.”

_“No problem.”_

Once Artie’s said his goodbyes and hung up his phone I ask, “So this Quinn person will be able to help us?”

Artie nods, “Definitely. The three of you were best friends in school. I know she’ll have Santana’s number.”

He begins dialing then and I feel butterflies start zooming around in my stomach, my whole body clenching nervously. He puts on the speaker-phone and sets the phone down on his desk one more time.

_“Hello?”_ a groggy voice answers.

“Hi, Quinn? This… It’s Artie. Artie Abrams?”

_“Artie?”_ The woman yawns. _“Artie, hi.”_

“Did I wake you?” Artie asks, looking at the clock. It’s only past ten in the morning, it isn’t that late. I’d still be asleep this late today if I wasn’t meeting with Artie.

_“Mmm, I was dozing,”_ she replies lazily. _“I worked late last night. Saturday’s are my sleep in days. What’s up? I haven’t heard from you since… a long time.”_

“I was wondering if you could help me get in touch with Santana.”

_“Why?”_ she asks absentmindedly as she gives a little sigh while she stretches.

“It’s about Brittany.”

It’s like my name was the magic word. Suddenly Quinn is wide awake and all business as she asks, _“What about Brittany?”_

“I…” he looks over at me, thinking up how much exactly he wants to tell her. “I might have a lead on… on where she is.”

_“Brittany’s alive?”_ Quinn whispers.

“Yeah… I… I think she…” He trails off and there’s silence on the other end for a long moment. “Quinn?” he asks when she doesn’t speak.

_“You’re still living in Phoenix, right? I’ll be there as soon as I can.”_ The line goes dead.

Artie’s brows come together. “That’s not exactly what I was going for.”


	10. When Everything

I leave Artie’s office a little while later, promising I’ll be back tomorrow morning. For when this Quinn person gets here.

I’m nervous about that. The way she dropped everything to come here… Seeing and meeting Artie was one thing, he was calm and just a little bit confused, but I have no idea what to expect with this woman, how she’ll react to seeing me. If only hearing my name can get her jumping between cities, what exactly will her seeing me do to her?

I call Drew on my way back to my car, telling him that it’s almost noon, he needs to get his ass out of bed by now.

“Why?” he mumbles into his phone. “I enjoy sleep. Go away.”

“Fine, I won’t tell you about my day then.”

“You just said it's noon, how can you have had a day already?”

I can tell I’m pissing him off. It’s fun. “I thought you didn’t want to hear about it,” I sing-song.

He grumbles again, “I don’t.”

“Oh, I think you do.”

“Unless it involves the two of us taking the week off to drive down to San Diego for some fun time, or you getting yourself a Valentine, I don’t want to hear about it.”

“Well,” I draw out, knowing I’ve got a way in now. “I _was_ meeting with someone… a guy…”

“Are you lying?”

“Nope,” I say. I mean, yes, I’m lying, but not completely, right? I was meeting with a guy.

“I’ll be there in twenty.”

“Best friend ever!”

Drew grumbles and hangs up.

* * *

A half hour later I’m in the kitchen making eggs when I hear the door open. “B, you dragged me out of bed. This had better be good,” he yells as I hear the thump of his shoes coming off and the louder thump of Hobbes realising there’s company and jumping off the kitchen counter.

“I made you food,” I answer, peeking around the corner to see him crouching by the door, my cat weaving in and out between his feet.

I figured food would be good. For one, I was hungry and I knew he would be hungry. Two, it would be an apology for both getting him out of bed, and for not telling him yesterday when Artie said he recognised me or telling Drew last night after I made the appointment with Artie’s secretary.

“What kind of food?” Drew asks as he enters the kitchen.

I look up and smirk. Drew will forever claim he is a dog person, but the way he acts with Hobbes begs to differ. ‘He’s the size of a dog anyways,’ is Drew’s usual excuse.

He dumps the large beast onto the kitchen table and takes a seat. Hobbes lays down right in front of him, waving a paw in the air until Drew sighs and starts petting him.

“Eggs.”

“Eggs and cookies are the only food you can make,” he complains, eyes on the cat before him.

“And nachos ‘n salsa,” I add.

“Exactly,” he looks up at me. “If you were smarter, you’d learn to make better food to bribe me with, not just eggs.”

I flip the omelettes onto the plates and walk over to the table. Drew gives Hobbes a little nudge but he doesn’t move. His big yellow eyes blink up at me pleadingly, but I glare at him. “Go on, off the table.” He gets up and jumps down, so I set one plate down in front of Drew and the other for myself.“I made omelettes especially for you.”

“I made omelettes especially for you.”

“Bribery food,” he says, taking a bite. He chews for a minute, then adds, “Not the greatest.”

I wave his comment off. “Just be grateful I’m feeding you at all.”

He shrugs, thick mop of hair falling in front of his face as he dips his head to keep eating. “I like you better when you cook me take-out.”

“You just like that I put up with you enough to feed you,” I giggle. “You’d eat burgers every night if it were up to you.”

“A burger’s a burger, fast food or not. And a burger’s damn good food.”

I’m fairly certain that burgers are all Drew ate through college. I’m no expert at cooking, but at least I can do better than him. And he’s over here a lot because of it.

“So,” he says around a mouthful. “What is this news you got me out of bed for?”

“You know the guy who was on the tour of the labs yesterday?”

“Wheelchair guy?” I nod. “Yeah, said hi. He seemed pretty cool. Was a little intimidated by Grant-”

I cut in, “Everyone is intimidated by Grant.”

“But he seemed pretty nice. Why?” He pauses and then blinks a few times, some sort of realisation dawning on him. “He asked you out, didn’t he? Score B, high five!” He holds his hand out but frowns when all I do is laugh at him. “What?”

“He didn’t ask me out.”

“Okay…”

“But I went to see him today.”

I’m only halfway through my lunch but Drew has already finished inhaling most of his. He drops a scrap on the floor, knowing Hobbes will appreciate it. Then he focuses all his attention on me. “Explain.”

“He recognised me,” I say nonchalantly, lifting another bite of egg to my mouth.

If Drew hadn’t already finished eating I’m sure he would have been wearing his food. His hand pounds down on the table excitedly, “What?!”

I flash a smile. “Yep.”

“He recognised you? From before the accident? He knew who you were? What did he say?”

“One question at a time, Drew, please.”

“How’d he recognise you?” he demands.

“Grant tried to introduce us. But Artie kind of froze up because, like, I’ve been missing for five years. And then I went to see him today,” I say, skipping over the part where I could have told Drew all this last night but didn’t. “And he filled me in on some things. Not everything, but some.”

“Like what?!” He looks like a kid in a candy store his eyes are so big.

“Like I grew up in Ohio, I have a sister. I was a nurse before the accident.”

Drew nods, “That fits. Pretty well actually.” He takes a moment to really think that one over. “I can actually see that really easily. Easier than picturing you in the lab.”

“Oh thanks,” I grumble. Just because I’m not a super-genius like him doesn’t mean I’m not good at my job. “Artie and I dated in high school apparently.”

Drew looks thoughtful, “Was he in a wheelchair then?”

“I think so,” I say, remembering the pictures he showed me. “Apparently we were in some sort of glee club; he said I was a kick-ass dancer.”

“That doesn’t surprise me at all.”

I stand, taking our empty dishes and bringing them to the sink. Then I follow him over to the couch, sitting as Drew flops down next to me. “What else?” he demands. “Why didn’t you take me with you? You’re making me hear it all second-hand,” he whines.

“If I had taken you,” I suppress a giggle, “You would have embarrassed the both of us.”

“Did he say anything about what happened to you?”

I shake my head, “He didn’t know a whole lot; he could only tell me what he knew. We were friends, but he wasn’t there when I disappeared. He… he said they did look for me though, he’s sure they looked in hospitals for me.”

“You were in a hospital,” Drew states, knowing my whole history, from the moment I woke up to the moment I met him.

“I don’t know,” I say, giving a little half-shrug. “He… he doesn’t know everything. He called someone though, that I was closer with. A friend. She’s coming down tomorrow. Hopefully, she’ll be able to fill in what Artie couldn’t.”

Hobbes jumps up onto me, digging his feet into my legs until I push down on his back and make him stretch out on my lap. He’s heavy, but a familiar weight. “He told me my name though.”

“Your…” Drew looks confused for a moment. “Oh, God. That’s right. Bethany isn’t even your name, is it?”

“No.”

“So?” He looks hesitant, asking this, like he’s afraid learning the real name will ruin the image he has of me in his head.

“I’m Brittany Pierce-Lopez.” Hobbes purrs where he sits on my lap. Clearly, he likes my real name.

“Brittany,” Drew says, testing the word out. I watch him carefully as he repeats it a few more times, his lips moving slowly through the letters. “Brittany. Huh. It… it doesn’t feel all that different.”

“I was close,” I say, repeating my words from earlier. “I picked the name Bethany because it felt almost right. Bethany, Brittany, I was close.”

“You were. Nice,” he agrees. “I can still call you B, can’t I?” He smiles, “And a hyphenated last name, interesting. Mom didn’t want to take your Dad’s name?”

“No,” I say. “This is the best part.”

He narrows his eyes at me, searching my face for the answer. “Best part?”

“I’m married,” a beat, “to a woman.”

It takes over a minute for Drew to process this one. He sits and stares at me, unblinking, long enough that it starts to worry me. His eyebrows are pulled together slightly, so I know he’s thinking and not brain-dead, but it still worries me how still he’s sitting.

Hobbes seems to notice. He lifts his head from where it was resting in my lap to look up at Drew, letting out a puffy mew at him.

“Wow,” he manages to say. “You’re married. You’re married?”

“Apparently.”

“A woman.”

“Yeah.”

“Huh. I never really pegged you as… I mean sometimes you… but… huh.”

I’ve never really thought about sexuality, not the way Drew does. If I like someone, then I like them. If I don’t, then I don’t. It’s never really needed special words for me.

Then again, I haven’t really been interested in anyone since the accident. There’s Grant, and then there are the few guys that have asked me out, but I’ve never really… felt a connection.

Maybe because I wasn’t actively looking at women.

Maybe… maybe because something inside me already knew there was someone else.

“Do you know what she…?” he tries.

“Artie showed me a picture, yeah. Her name’s Santana.”

“Nice,” Drew says, bobbing his head, “Ethnic. She pretty?”

“Yeah,” is all I can say, because, well, yeah. She was stunning in that picture.

“Do you know anything about her?” He asks, and suddenly I don’t like the look on his face, the way it’s quickly pulling into a frown.

“No,” I say slowly, “No, Artie didn’t say a whole lot. He explained a little bit about what he knew from the day I disappeared, about me and her. And he said it was really rough on her, me vanishing like I did.” Actually, it was more what Artie didn’t say. How he couldn’t finish all his thoughts, the pained looks he had worn.

It was the way his face had slowly dropped when he was talking about the other woman, not just a frown, but looking like he was actually in pain – like he was reliving his pain. It was the way his eyes lost their excitement from when he’d been showing me the pictures. The way his whole body seemed to droop in his chair, like it hurt too much to think about her and what she had gone through. “Where is she now? Where did you live before the accident?”

“Where is she now? Where did you live before the accident?”

“California,” I answer, though Artie never specified where.

“And she…” Drew hesitates.

He reaches over and tugs Hobbes off my lap, pulling him into his own. He wraps both arms around the cat, who doesn’t seem at all bothered to have been woken and moved. Drew wraps his arms around Hobbes and holds him like he’s some sort of shield, the way someone would hold a pillow against them, to weaken the blow they’re expecting.

“Drew?” I know I’m not going to like this.

“Well, I mean. B, it’s been five years since you left. And if no one knew what happened to you, if you just disappeared on them… well… did Artie say anything about her… about her moving on?”

I don’t say anything, I just stare at Drew, my lips parted slightly.

“I know you probably don’t want to hear this. But, I mean. Five years is a long time for someone to wait, B. She… Artie said you were married to her, did he say if you still are?”

“I…”

“Fuck,” he says, shoving the cat off his lap and leaning towards me. “Damn it, I shouldn’t have said that,” he insists, taking my hands in his.

I didn’t really think of that one. But he as a point. A really good point. If I left, or disappeared, or whatever, and they didn’t know why or if I was coming back… even if I had been married to her, I wouldn’t expect her to wait around forever. If she found someone else…

A heavy weight settles in my chest. I’m not really sure what to do now. Artie said Santana would still want to see me. But why wouldn’t she? She’d want to know I was alive, for the sake of knowing.

She just may not want to know for the sake of having her wife back.


	11. Quinn

She really should have had Artie be clearer about what sort of lead exactly he had on Brittany, because by this point her stomach has tightly coiled itself into something resembling a ball of yarn the size of a bowling ball. It is kind of uncomfortable, just sitting there in her stomach, oozing out worry and anxiety.

The minute he had said Brittany’s name she had jumped into action. Brittany… Brittany might be…

No. She stops the thought right there. She isn’t going to let herself get attached to this. That was why she had jumped to go see him and not simply passed along Santana’s number. If the lead was a false one, if whatever this was wasn’t real, Quinn could handle it. She would force herself to handle it. But she would not get Santana involved unless this was a for sure. She wouldn’t do that to her.

Santana had kind of broken apart when Brittany left/disappeared – for Quinn it had always been left/disappeared, never one or the other, she refused to believe Brittany had up and left Santana, and didn’t want to think about the repercussions of her disappearing because of some serial killer or whatnot. Santana was better now, moving on with her life, but Quinn wasn’t going to take any chances. Santana had always been and would always be fragile when it came to any and all things relating to Brittany.

It hadn’t been difficult, arranging to get herself from Tucson to Phoenix as fast as possible. Her boss had been very reasonable when Quinn had called her seconds after hanging up with Artie.

“I need a day or two off.”

_“What?”_

“A friend of mine went missing a few years ago; we might have a lead on her. I need to…”

_“Fabray, you were in here past midnight last night. Something’s come up that is going to get you_ out _of the office for more than a few hours? I’ll gladly okay it. Take as long as you need, find your friend.”_

And that was that.

Shuffling around her schedule for the next few days had taken a little more work. She wasn’t just going to up and leave; she was at least going to reschedule meetings and presentations and try to piss off as few people as possible. She wasn’t just going to drop off the face of the earth, the way Brittany–

Reorganizing with her family had taken a little more juggling but hadn’t been overly difficult. As soon as she told Mike that Artie had heard something about Brittany he had insisted on coming too, that he was friends with Brittany just as much as she was. But Quinn wanted as few people involved in this as possible, and someone had to stay home with Tyler; their toddler was not at the stage where he could be expected to deal with surprise two-hour car rides without breaking their ear drums. Mike had finally agreed to stay behind, but he had sulked and made Quinn promise to tell him everything as soon as she knew what Artie knew.

There had also been the matter of booking a last minute room in a hotel in Phoenix; she wasn’t just going to invite herself into staying on Artie’s couch.

Assuming he even had a couch, what with the wheelchair. She hadn’t seen Artie in a few years, had no idea if he was seeing anyone. If he was, then he probably had a couch. But if he was living alone, would he even bother with one?

Not important.

Quinn didn’t actually get around leaving the house until late afternoon, so the few hour drive north got her into town late enough that she wasn’t going to try and meet up with him at his office, especially when she called back but only got his secretary. Either he’d call her back to meet for dinner, or she’d assume she could drop by in the morning.

The whole drive Quinn had tried blasting the radio in order to distract herself, but the anxiety ball of yarn grew in her stomach anyway, spiralling out and making her limbs and head feel heavy and weak, like she was full of sludgy syrup and not blood.

It seems like by the time she’s walking up to Artie’s office building the next morning, the nervousness of not knowing what is in store for her has coiled itself into a whole damn forest inside her. She’s tense and jumpy and all around uneasy about what this meeting would tell her.

The receptionist on the main floor of the building points her towards the elevators and tells her to get off on the third floor. She doesn’t feel out of place, in a power suit and blending in with everyone else, but standing in the elevator it feels like everyone is staring at her, like they know she’s getting her hopes up about the possibility of finding someone who most in her life assumed would never come back. From where she was hiding, or from the dead. Everyone had their own ideas.

“You wanted the third floor?”

Quinn blinks, coming out of her thoughts. The elevator doors are open, the sign above illuminating a ‘3’ and the man standing next to her is looking at her sceptically.

“Oh, right. Thanks.”

She’s a mess.

She knows she’s a mess, but she can’t do anything to fix it.

Even stepping off the elevator, it still feels like everyone is staring at her. Maybe she has ‘I think I’m suffering an anxiety attack’ stamped to her forehead. Usually, it’s a variation of ‘I’m the bitch in charge here, move it’ at the corporate office she works in, but she wouldn’t be surprised if it had changed overnight.

Thank God it’s her here and not Santana. If she’s a mess, Santana would be…

She makes her way to the information desk, and the woman there waves at her to hold on a minute. Quinn fidgets, looking over one shoulder and then over the other. Her eyes roam her surroundings but she takes nothing in, it all just passes through her.

“Yes?” the woman asks as she taps her headpiece, disconnecting her call and addressing Quinn.

“I’m looking for an Artie Abrams?”

“Mmm,” the woman says, neither smiling nor frowning. “Lot of women in and out of his office this weekend.”

Quinn hears but doesn’t really process this. It’s like she has tunnel vision, but for all her senses. If it doesn’t relate directly to what she’s here for, she’s not consciously taking it in.

“Is he around?”

The woman nods and points, “Fourth door on the left.”

Quinn doesn’t even thank the woman, she just starts walking. The walkway seems to stretch on forever, doors spaced so far apart she can’t even see the second one it’s so far away from the first she passes. The bright fluorescent lights above her beat down, illuminating everything in a painfully harsh, bright light.

It’s when the floor starts to shift under her that Quinn pauses for a second, leaning a palm against the wall. She takes five long deep breaths. Then two more. She can do this. Why is she freaking out? She can do this. This meeting doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean Brittany is alive, that Brittany’s back. It just means Artie knows something. Maybe it’s just a ticket stub or a taxi voucher she used the day she disappeared. Maybe it’s only someone who saw someone that looked like Brittany sometime recently.

Maybe it’s a body.

No. No, it isn’t a body. Artie would have told her if they’d found Brittany’s lifeless body in some stream or ditch somewhere. He would have warned her. The walls begin to swirl and mix together as another wave of nausea presses over her.

But it passes. Another three breaths and everything slowly rights itself. Her heart stops pounding quite so loud in her ears, the lights overhead are no longer too bright and stinging, the doors along the wall are evenly spaced and the hall no longer stretches on forever.

She takes a step and the ground sways a little, but she ignores it. She’s Quinn Fabray. She can do this.

Artie’s door is closed so she raps on it. His voice, still familiar after years of not hearing it, tells her to come inside.

She opens the door only a little, squeezing herself inside, searching for the familiar.

She finds him at his desk; in proper business attire and without the wheelchair gloves she had come to associate him with. His eyes find hers when he hears the door open and he smiles, bright and warm and assuring her it isn’t bad news. His thick frame glasses look the same, hair still styled like she remembers it from a few years ago. He doesn’t look haggard or hung over or without sleep. He looks like Artie.

Quinn is okay. She can do this.

“Hi.”

“Quinn, hey.”

She’s staring at him, her eyes locked on his, daring him to rip the rug out from under her and say they’ve found a body. That’s the worst possible option, the thing she dreads the most. She knows it’s the thing Santana dreads the most. A call one day saying they’ve found Brittany, but that she isn’t ever going to come home.

Her eyes hold his steady, waiting.

His smile at seeing her shifts, forming a tight line and Quinn braces herself, her body tensing as if preparing to fall.

Something moves, catching her eye. Her gaze slides from Artie slightly, and Quinn sees he wasn’t alone in his office. There’s someone sitting at his desk, their back to Quinn.

She interrupted him. She’s panicking and she interrupted him and she should come back later when he’s free and she isn’t about to pop a blood vessel or go into cardiac arrest.

“Oh,” she says, finding her voice. “Sorry, your secretary said I could come in, I didn’t realise you had someone in…”

Her words taper off as the figure turns in their seat.

Holy shit.

Gooseflesh rises over her in a wave as the room starts spinning wildly, much faster than it was out in the hallway. She takes a half step back, shrinking towards the door.

She was preparing herself for just about every outcome except for this one.

Brittany.

Alive.

And sitting at Artie’s desk, watching Quinn silently.

Brittany isn’t just alive.

She’s _here._

“Quinn,” Artie calls, trying to bring her back. He wheels out from behind his desk and edges closer to her, a tentative hand lifting towards her. “Quinn,” his voice is gentle and coaxing her not to panic.

Too fucking late for that.

“Y…” she whispers, the sound falling from her mouth and cracking in the air, unfinished. “You…” she tries again. She isn’t sure if the word is shaking or if her body is what’s shaking. She knows her vision is shaking. And her hands are shaking. The floor might be shaking too, she isn’t sure.

“Hi,” Brittany says, smiling tentatively at her.

Artie shoots Brittany a look. Quinn can’t figure out what it means. Quinn can’t understand anything.

Brittany?

“Quinn?” Artie calls again and her eyes snap towards him, landing hard and sharp and making him flinch. She isn’t sure what her face looks like, but it’s probably a mix between her working bitch face and pure and absolute terror.

When he doesn’t say anything more she looks back at Brittany, who by now is standing up from her chair and watching Quinn like she’s a stray dog, unsure if she’s going to snap.

“You’re alive,” Quinn whimpers, her voice weak and hurt and scared. Brittany’s alive.

Brittany gives a half smile and that’s all Quinn needs before she’s moving across the space and throwing her arms around the other woman, hugging her in sheer desperation. Brittany’s _alive._

Her eyes are squeezed shut where they’re pressing into Brittany’s neck. They’re shut so tightly she isn’t sure if they’re what’s causing the pressing feeling of tears or if they’re trying their hardest to prevent the tears. She whimpers again, choking back a sob as she clings to Brittany tightly.

Brittany feels the same, she feels the same as the last time Quinn hugged her, a few weeks before she disappeared. It feels like home, like hugging love and family and everything good in the world. Holding Brittany tightly in her arms feels like suddenly everything is okay, like the world has given her part of her life back, part of her heart. Brittany was one of her best friends.

But she’s okay. She’s here and she’s alive and she’s…

Quinn suddenly becomes more aware of the hug. Brittany… Brittany isn’t hugging her back. Her arms have come up around Quinn, a hand pressing against her back, warm and comforting. But it isn’t… right. Brittany isn’t _hugging_ her back.

Like a quick spreading poison the word ‘wrong’ blooms inside her, starting from every place she has contact with Brittany’s skin and moving through her body until it reaches her brain and screams at her and Quinn makes the connection that something about this is so _wrong_.

The poison reaches her nerves and Quinn heaves herself from Brittany’s arms, breaking the embrace and staggering back a few steps. Quinn’s eyes are like liquid fire as she stares into Brittany’s, searching. Searching for anything she knows, anything inside that is Brittany.

But there’s nothing. Brittany’s gaze holds concern and worry, but there is nothing familiar about it. Brittany… Brittany’s looking at her like… like she’s…

A stranger.

This isn’t Brittany.

Her legs move her back another step as her hand rises up, trying to hold back the sob of realisation as it tumbles from her lips. “You…” Her head shakes back and forth, not comprehending. She doesn’t understand. Quinn doesn’t know what is going on. All she knows is that this woman is not Brittany. “My God, what…?”

Artie.

Her gaze rounds on him, hard and angry and demanding an explanation. “I…” But her voice doesn’t have the same strength her eyes do. Her eyes are strong and expressive and like daggers. But her voice wavers and exposes her, painting her an image of confusion, not anger. “I don’t…”

“Quinn,” Artie tries.

She looks to Brittany and then back to Artie, forcing her words out. They sound weak and timid but she forces them on him anyways, begging him to explain. “I don’t understand. She’s not…”

She looks at Brittany, pleading. “You’re not…”

“No,” Brittany says gently. “I’m not.”

None of this is making sense.

“I don’t understand.” And she wants to. She wants to understand right now. She needs to. She needs to understand before she blacks from all the emotions swirling through her. She is seeing Brittany again in person, but Brittany is looking right through her as if she doesn’t even _see_ Quinn.

Artie rolls forward a little ways, placing himself partially between Brittany and Quinn. She can see he’s worried, unsure what she’s going to do. “Quinn, Brittany-”

“That’s not Brittany,” she hisses, voice cracking near the end. She knew Brittany. She knew Brittany almost as long as Santana did. It was the three of them against the world, best friends. She knew Brittany.

The Brittany she knew could never look at her with such, such… an empty expression on her face.

“Quinn. It’s Quinn, right?” Brittany says, stepping forward and placing a hand on Artie’s shoulder. She doesn’t look down at him, she keeps her eyes soft and focused on Quinn. “I’m still… I’m still Brittany. But… something happened to me.”

“You left.”

Quinn can see the effect of her words, it’s like she’s spoken the most horrible curse. Brittany flinches, giving Quinn a heartbreaking look before continuing. “I was in an accident.”

Quinn grasps onto the beginnings of the explanation, holding on with all she can. “What kind of accident?” she whispers.

“I was hit by a car. When I woke up I,” she shakes her head sadly, “I couldn’t remember anything.”

Everything around Quinn slows down. A cold rushes over her, and a thick film covers her ears. She can feel her heart, slowing down, pulsing roughly against her chest. Slowly beating its way inside out.

Her leg muscles tense and her feet plant, keeping her from swaying and losing her balance.

She doesn’t know what to think, doesn’t know what to do with this.

“Quinn?” Artie asks, his voice hesitant.

Quinn can hear her blood rushing in her ears and blasting through her veins as she tries to process this. Brittany doesn’t remember.


	12. Meant Everything Again

With a little coaxing, Artie gets Quinn to sit down on the small leather couch in his office. He parks his wheelchair next to her, keeping close to her to offer comfort. I want to sit next to her, to reach out and let her know that it’s okay, but I don’t. She doesn’t need that right now. She is confused enough.

I spin the spare chair at Artie’s desk around so I’m sitting across from Quinn and I give her a hesitant smile.

Quinn lets out a shaky breath and presses her fingers to the bridge of her nose, taking a moment to centre herself. Then she puts her hands down and looks at me. “Explain. _Please_.”

I glance at Artie, who nods at me, and then I begin. “I was hit by a car. I didn’t break anything, a few cuts and some bruised ribs. But I hit my head really hard. I have retrograde amnesia; I can’t remember anything from before the accident.”

Quinn stays quiet for a moment before asking softly, “When was this?”

“Five years ago.”

“And you’ve been here all this time?” Her question is hushed, but she shakes her head and continues speaking before I can respond. “When? When was the accident?”

“January, five years ago. The…” I pause, remembering. “The seventeenth, I think. The doctor said I was unconscious in the hospital for three days before I woke up.”

Artie and I watch as she calculates in her head and then nods sadly. “That… that makes sense. That was the day you… the last time Santana heard from you.” Her eyes suddenly grow wide and she looks at Artie, “Does she know who San-?”

“I told her, yeah.”

Quinn nods, looking back at me again. “You don’t remember the accident though? Nothing about it?”

I shake my head, feeling bad for her. “No. I don’t know what happened, how I got hit by that car. I know it was a hit-and-run, someone else called the ambulance. They didn’t find the person.” I shrug the last sentence, apologetic that I can’t offer her more.

A silence stretches as Quinn tries to work this out. Her eyes move, blinking and shifting, as her thoughts flow inside her head. I can tell she’s only partially here. She’s listening to my words, but not really seeing me, she’s remembering what she went through.

“Wait,” she says, blinking back her unfocused look and centring her gaze on me. “You were in a hospital?”

“Yeah.”

“No, no that isn’t right. You can’t have been.”

I am one hundred percent sure I spent time in a hospital after the accident, or else I wouldn’t have ended up where I am now. I tell Quinn as much.

“No,” she repeats. “No, you weren’t. We checked, _I_ checked.”

“What?” I ask hesitantly, knowing she’s about to explain her side of things, knowing she’s about to explain everything that happened that I can’t remember. I’m ready to hear this, but at the same time, I’m worried for what I’ll learn.

She opens her mouth to speak, but then looks at Artie. “How much did you explain to her?”

He frowns sadly, “Not a whole lot, just that she went missing and you guys looked for her but couldn’t find her. That she and San had an argument and she disappeared. You… you were there with Santana, you know what happened. I only know second-hand.”

“Okay,” Quinn nods, clearly bracing herself. She looks back at me, “I’m going to tell you what happened, and you’re going to fill things in for me, okay? Because that doesn’t make sense, we looked for you. If you were in the hospital we would have found you.”

This makes my heart flutter a little bit, knowing people _had_ looked for me. When the days started going by and the hospital staff said no one had come looking for me… it was a hard pill to swallow.

“Okay,” she repeats and then starts her side of the story. “You and Santana were in an argument. She had to go and spend a week in a hotel for work and you didn’t like it.”

“Why?” I interrupt. But right away I can see she doesn’t like my question. She winces, face breaking a little bit. She must not want to get into the reason behind the argument. “Sorry, go on.”

She gives an unhappy breath, unsure if she should offer more of an explanation. But she must decide against it because she continues with her story, “She’d been gone… two days? Three?” Quinn shakes her uncertainty away, “She’d been gone on the trip a few days. You kept calling her but she ignored you. She needed space to calm down, she’s always been like that…”

“Quinn,” Artie prompts when she lapses into silence, eyes growing moist.

“Sorry,” she says thickly. She swallows down the waver in her voice and begins again. “Then you just stopped calling. She said she thought you realised she needed space. Then she went and listened to the messages you left her.

“I…” Quinn stumbles over her next words. “She let me hear them.” She looks almost apologetic, like she’s stepped inside our privacy, this other woman and mine’s. “The first few were just you, telling her you were sorry and trying to get her to come back, saying you two needed to work through everything.

“She called me right after she listened to the last one, about a day after you left it on her phone. It… it sounded like you had given up… that you were leaving her.”

“What?” Artie barks out, snapping his attention from watching me to staring open-mouthed at Quinn. “What?” he repeats, a little softer but just as urgent. “No one told me that, that she left a message saying she was leaving.”

Quinn chews her lips, looking sadly at him. “She only told me. She didn’t tell any of you, because she didn’t know what it meant. Brittany left a message that sounded like she was leaving, to get away from Santana, but the bus ticket…”

“Bus ticket?” I ask her.

Quinn looks torn, glancing back and forth between the two of us. She finishes addressing Artie first, “She didn’t know what to think, okay? And she was emotional. It sounded like Britt was leaving, but the bus ticket meant otherwise. She didn’t know what it meant, so she asked me not to tell you guys about the message.”

“I just… I don’t understand why she left then,” he whispers, glancing at me, talking about the old me, the one I don’t remember.

“Imagine how Santana felt,” Quinn says softly.

“Quinn?” I say gently, drawing her focus back to me. She hasn’t finished the story yet, I still don’t understand everything.

She smiles at me, but not with her eyes. It’s only a reflex, more for herself than meant to comfort me. “She called me when she realised you were gone. I flew over as fast as I could; I had moved to Tucson a few months before. But I went and met her at her work conference as soon as I could.

“San… she was so broken and confused when I got there,” Quinn goes on, and I can see her trying to keep her hands from shaking as she remembers. “She didn’t know if you had left her or… she didn’t know what to think. Neither did I. But we figured maybe you had needed to get away for a little while, like Santana had. We had a credit card trace, but you had only bought one thing recently.”

“A bus ticket?” The story is confusing for me but I’m taking in everything she gives me.

Quinn nods, “From Riverside to Bakersfield.” On my blank look, she elaborates. “You and Santana lived in an apartment in Riverside; her conference was in Bakersfield. You… it looked like you were going after her, to make up, to apologise.”

Her head droops, “But you never showed up. You weren’t at the conference and you weren’t at home. You were just… gone. We didn’t know if the ticket was a dud or if you had gone after her but had gotten lost.

“You didn’t answer your phone, for Santana or for me. Your car was still at the apartment, and you had only taken a few clothes with you. It didn’t _feel_ like you had left her. You were just gone. No note, no anything.”

“Brittany would have left a note,” Artie adds quietly, like this the thought he’s held on to for a long time, reassuring him the old me didn’t abandon my family.

I can see how distressed Quinn is getting, the way her eyes are growing damp and her hands are clutching desperately at her knees. She’s upset, but she’s trying to hold everything back.

I wish I had the answers she needs, I wish I could explain to her why I had left.

“She thought maybe something had happened to you, that you had gotten lost or hurt or something. We called around, asked if people had heard from you. She called your work, to see if you were hiding there, but they didn’t know where you were. I filed the missing person's report, checked the nearest hospitals.”

“I was in a hospital,” I insist.

She shakes her head angrily as a few tears spill over, “I called around near where the conference was held, to see if you had made it there or not, but no one knew. I called the hospitals there and I called the hospitals near where you lived. I had to be the one to call your work and see if you had come in in a way they weren’t expecting you to, not through the staff doors but in an ambulance, because Santana couldn’t…”

Her words choke off and Artie reaches for her as she cries, one hand taking hers and the other reaching to rub back. I feel awful. I feel like the most horrible creature on the planet because I’m the one making her this upset but I don’t know how to help.

Quinn takes a moment to let everything out before pulling away from Artie’s touch. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand before looking at me with the most hurt expression and asks brokenly, “What happened to you?”

“I woke up in a hospital in Santa Clarita,” I explain. “That’s where the accident was. They even took me there, where it happened, to see if it would jog any memories. It was near a coffee place; there was a Laundromat and a convenience store too. But nothing was familiar.”

Now Quinn doesn’t look sad, she looks lost. Her face is red and tear-stained, but her expression is one of confusion. “Santa Clar… what were you doing there?”

“I don’t know,” I remind her gently.

Artie speaks for the first time in a little while. “Maybe she got off the bus?”

“What?” Quinn asks, turning towards him.

“Is that anywhere near where they lived? The next city over or…?”

Quinn blinks and then stalls; I can see the thoughts flying rapidly across her face. “That’s halfway in between. We… we didn’t think to check… we just assumed…” She reaches forward, kneeling on the ground in front of me to hug me around the middle, “I’m sorry, Brittany. I’m sorry we couldn’t find you.”

I hug her back and rub her arms, speaking into her hair, “I’m sorry I couldn’t find you either.”

She pulls back after a long moment. “How come you couldn’t find us?” she asks softly. “I know you don’t remember, but how come you… how come you couldn’t…”

“I didn’t have any ID with me. I didn’t have a place to start. There was no driver’s license, no cell phone, so I couldn’t contact Santana. I…” I trail off, looking to Artie. I’m not sure if I should tell her I wasn’t wearing a wedding ring when they brought me to the hospital. If the look Artie gave me when I told him was heartbreaking, I’m afraid of what it will do to Quinn.

“You didn’t have anything with you?”

I shake my head, “No. No bag, no phone, no wallet. I had nowhere to start, no clue to know who I was when I woke up.”

I give her a final squeeze and she pulls away slowly, easing back into her seat and wiping at her eyes. “You packed a bag when you left, some of your things were gone.”

I give her a half smile, unsure what to say. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you more.”

“I can’t believe you’re alive, that you’re okay and alive and here,” her eyes, despite the tears, brighten. She gives a tearful laugh as she asks, “How did you end up here?”

“I… I kind of got offered a job, that’s how Artie found me. He was getting a tour of the labs and saw me there.”

“Labs?”

Artie shakes his head, “She works at Duncan BioTech.”

Quinn’s face pinches slightly, “The pharmaceutical development company?”

Artie and I both nod, “I’ve been working here since the accident. I get to wear a lab coat, work with cool machinery. It’s fun.”

Quinn gives a small, sad giggle, “I can’t see it.” I frown so she continues, “I can’t see you sitting still all day like that, looking into microscopes or working at computers all day. I can’t see you sitting still for so long.”

“It took a lot of practice. Artie said I was a nurse?”

She smiles, “Yeah. Yeah, you were. You loved it. I… San worried about you sometimes, being around sick and dying and broken people so often, she thought it might… break your spirit, your innocence, seeing people so vulnerable and exposed like that.” Her eyes are so soft, the way she thinks back and remembers the old me, remembers Santana. “But she told me that she’d never seen you so happy, that working there made you-”

“Shine brighter,” Artier finishes for her. “She told me that too, when I went to go see her after…”

There’s an uncomfortable pause as both of them reflect back, when they first saw this other woman after I disappeared, remembering how shattered she must have been. How confused and hurt and heartbroken.

“How did you go from the hospital to lab work?” Quinn asks me softly after a while, her eyes focused down on her lap. “If you didn’t know who you were, how did you get hired?”

“I was there for a month and a half.” Quinn’s face pinches and she goes to speak, but I stop her. “I didn’t… I didn’t have anywhere to go. The doctor wanted to make sure there wasn’t any more damage, wanted to see if I’d be able to remember anything. He kept me there a long time because he knew I didn’t have anywhere to go, really.

“While I was there I,” I shake my head, laughing at how ridiculous the whole story is, “I met Grant Duncan. His father owns the company.” Artie’s jaw drops a little. “We talked a lot, he was there often because of his um, his ex-stepmother? She was sick. And eventually, he offered me the job, said he could get me a place to stay and somewhere to work, since I didn’t have anything else.”

Quinn shakes her head, like’s she’s unsurprised I managed this. “Still Brittany, always the charmer.” Her voice still sounds raw from crying, but she’s smiling now, she isn’t panicking or upset like she was earlier.

“Quinn,” Artie starts, and I can see he looks hesitant. He shares a look with me, like he’s checking what he’s going to say with me before he speaks. “The reason we called you… I wanted to get in touch with Santana.”

She sighs, heavy and light at the same time. “Right. Right, she needs to know you’re okay.”

“Are,” I try, my voice wavering with my hesitation. It’s been five years, are they sure she’s going to want to see her presumably dead-or-abandoning wife? “Are you sure that this is… is the right thing to do?”

Quinn looks at me for a long moment, curious and studying. Eventually, she says, “What do you mean?”

“Well. I… none of you knew what happened to me. If I left her or… is she going to, to want to see me?”

Quinn’s answer is immediate, “She’ll want to see you, Britt. She’ll want to know you’re alive, just like I did, just like Artie did.”

I must still look unsure, because Quinn reaches across the space to take my hands in hers. “Trust me, okay? Santana… she needs this, she’ll need to see you.”

I guess it will be like closure. I won’t be able to tell her exactly why I left in the first place, how I ended up in the situation for the car to hit me, but seeing me will allow her to know that I’m alive. It won’t help in the not knowing if I left her, walked out on her, but it will give her closure, knowing I wasn’t hurt or killed somehow.

“When?” Artie asks. “Quinn, you’re staying in a hotel? We could head out tomor-”

“No!” The word bursts so quickly from her lips that even she’s a little taken aback by it, surprising herself with her force. “No,” she tries again more gently. “Wait. Wait, not right now. Can…” she trails off, searching Artie’s face for something. He sits still, and I can see she doesn’t receive whatever she’s looking for.

She turns her gaze to me, eyes slowly reading my face. “Can… can this wait a few days?”

“Why?” I ask nervously.

“I just… I know when to do this. Not tomorrow. Next week, next week will be better. Trust me.”

“Quinn?” Artie asks, his voice sceptical.

Quinn gives a half smile, “Santana’s waited five years to know if Brittany’s okay; she can wait one more week.”


	13. A Way Home

Drew was a hyper-bug the rest of the week. As soon as he found out that Quinn and Artie were stealing me away in a few days to go see Santana – or ‘the wife’ as Drew has taken to calling her – he reached new levels of excitement. I think he’s more excited than me actually, that I’m finally going to learn who I am and meet all the people I’ve forgotten.

He came over after work a few days during the week, getting more and more excited. At first, he was only speculating, imagining what would happen and how things will work out. But eventually speculating turned into questioning, and that got a little annoying because he kept asking me things I don’t have the answer to. What does Santana do for a living, has Quinn contacted my parents, did I have any pets before the accident?

Drew is my best friend, but sometimes he gets a little too enthusiastic for his own good.

Quinn had driven back home for the week, and then early Saturday morning was driving up to get me and Artie. The plan was to get to where Santana was living by mid-afternoon.

Quinn said she had arranged some place for the three of us to stay the night; she insisted that there was no way it would be a five-minute greeting with Santana and then that would be that, and she made it clear that she was not driving back and forth across the border all in one day. With that in mind, I had arranged for Drew to stop by my apartment to feed Hobbes until I got back.

Drew wasn’t too pleased with the plan.

“B, I love you dearly. And by extension, I’m required to love your cat. But I really can’t be expected to get up for work earlier than normal just so I can stop by your place to feed the beast.”

I’d given him my most stern and unimpressed look. “Drew.”

“You’re only going to be gone, what? A day or two? The Hobbester can last that long without food.”

“Drew!”

“What? He has enough fat reserves to last him the winter; I think he can manage a few days.”

“Okay, one. He isn’t that fat, most of that weight is fur. He isn’t overweight. Two, that’s just cruel. How would you like it if I locked you in my apartment with no food for a few days?”

“I hate you.”

“You love me.”

Those last two were a common call-and-answer phrase in our relationship.

I still feel a little weird about the whole thing. Okay, a lot weird. I mean, I was married to this woman. So, when I meet her now, how exactly am I supposed to act? Is she going to be mad at me, both for leaving-disappearing and then for coming back into her life after she’s moved on?

Also, it’s the day before Valentine’s. So, awkward.

The drive there, it’s exciting at first. Interesting rock formations and all kinds of different green plant life. But a half hour in and I’m bored. It is a desert. Not much else to it.

We pass the time by blasting Artie’s iPod and singing – and in mine and Artie’s case, seat dancing – until our heart’s content. Quinn gets a little emotional, saying it reminds her of high school, the high school I couldn’t remember, and that sobers us up for a little while.

Until another Michael Jackson number begins blasting from Quinn’s car speakers. Cue obnoxious singing.

She and I trade-off part way through the drive. Artie can’t because, well, not working legs and all. He stays up front the whole time and Quinn and I switch about half way through, me moving from the back seat to drive us along the very boring highway. Quinn takes over driving again when we pull off the highway, since she knows where she’s going and it’s easier than directing me.

We turn onto a quiet residential street. The houses seem like they’re all mismatched, different kinds thrown together into this neighbourhood. Some are bungalows, some are two stories. Some have small yards, some have massive lawns and driveways. There are lots of trees. It looks like a nice place to live. Quiet, not busy like the downtown of Phoenix.

Quinn pulls into a driveway. While she gets out and goes to get Artie’s chair and help him out, I get out of the car and stare up at the house. There are clusters of balloons tied to the garage and front door.

Before the question even forms on my lips, Quinn’s voice sounds from behind me. “It’s her daughter’s birthday.”

Artie laughs, “That was your plan, wasn’t it? To party crash? Very sneaky, Quinn.”

Quinn sees my worried look and explains further. “Santana knows I’m coming, I told her I was bringing someone along.”

Artie nods at this as the two of them begin to make their way to the front door. I follow, but hesitantly. Something unhappy is settling inside me, making my stomach twist. Not only am I just showing up at this woman’s house unannounced after five years, but I’m intruding on her family. That’s something personal, something theirs. She moved on with her life, it doesn’t seem fair of Quinn and Artie to bring me back into it.

I’m still curious; I want to meet the woman I married. But I’m still hesitant.

Between the two of us, we manage to get Artie lifted up the two front steps. Then Quinn raps on the door.

After a few seconds, I can hear pounding feet inside, running down the hall. A body ploughs into the door roughly before it’s thrown open. A little girl stands there, in a red dress with grass-stained white tights. Her expression when she opened the door is excited, like she was hoping we were someone else. Her face falls when she sees that it’s not who she expected.

“Hey, munchkin,” Quinn says cheerfully.

The little girl blinks, seeming to realise who is at the door, and smiles. “Aunt Quinn!”

The girl is small, with skinny little arms and tiny stocking-covered feet. She has a mane of dark hair on her head that is somewhat held back with a white ribbon headband. Her tanned cheeks are a little red, like she’s been running around for some time, but her dark eyes shine happily at us.

She throws her small arms around Quinn’s middle and squeezes before latching onto her hand and dragging her inside. “Aunt Quinn, you’re here! I didn’t know you were going to be here!”

Quinn smiles, “I told your mom I was coming by.”

Artie rolls himself in and I’m close behind, pulling the door shut after me. It’s warm inside. Not warm like the temperature; the house feels lived in, alive, loved. The feeling wraps around me, pulling me in, and I feel even more out of place. I shouldn’t be here.

“I thought you were coming tomorrow! That’s when the family party is, on my actual birthday! This is just for my friends!” She dances on her feet, her dress fanning out. She has a lot of energy for someone so small. “I thought you were the clown!”

“The clown?!” Quinn asks excitedly, her teeth showing as she smiles at the little girl’s exuberance.

The little girl nods her head eagerly and her dark bangs flop in front of her face. She shakes her head and tosses them out of her eyes as she speaks, “We’re all outside playing but I had to pee so I came inside and the clown wasn’t here yet so I heard the door and thought it was the clown but it was you!”

Her attention suddenly changes and she directs a look at Artie and I. “Who are you?!” She’s still bouncing up and down on her feet, hanging on Quinn’s arm.

“I brought some friends with me,” Quinn says, “They aren’t the clown, but I hope that’s okay.”

Artie wheels himself forward a little bit, “Hey there, Ruby Tuesday.”

She squints at him, her face pinching adorably. This girl is very cute.

Artie sighs, “You don’t remember me, do you?” The little girl shakes her head. “You’ve only met me once before, when you were a baby.”

She nods slowly, suddenly calm. “But I know you,” she states. “From the pictures. The wheeley man. You have wheels for feet. That’s cool. I wish I had wheels for feet. It would make me go so much faster!”

“I don’t know,” Artie laughs, offering her his hand to shake. She grips it with both of her smaller ones and gives it a good swing, “You seem to have enough energy as it is.”

She nods happily, “Mamá says I’m like the battery bunny, but I’m not pink so how can that work?” She turns her attention to me, and like with Artie, she squints at me as she takes me in. But she’s also frowning, “You look like…”

She doesn’t finish; the door to their backyard must be open as suddenly the squeals of small children erupt along with a loud masculine laugh. She bounces faster on her feet, looking over her shoulder as she speaks, “We’re playing Jungle Book; we’re all the animals and there’s a dinosaur trying to eat us. I’m the tiger – I have to go save my friends, bye!” She looks back at us for a second and then suddenly bolts down the hall, running back outside.

“Tell your mom we’re here!” Quinn calls right before there’s a loud slam of a door. She looks at me as she speaks, “That’s Ruby. She has a lot of energy.”

“The kid’s a beast,” Artie comments.

Quinn smiles, stepping out of her shoes and dropping her bag, “You should see her on the soccer field. I’ve come down for a game before. She’s the smallest one on the team, but my God can that girl run fast.”

Artie considers this, then says, “Remind me never to buy her roller blades.”

While the two of them are happily discussing the energy of the little girl we met, I’m rooted to the spot, the earlier feeling of discomfort growing. I know I shouldn’t be here. This little girl’s party is for her friends, with her mother and father out back with them; I’m going to ruin it. The moment her mother sees me I’m going to ruin it. The discomfort builds, coiling into a tight ball inside me, pressing against my insides and making it hard to breathe.

Quinn is suddenly standing next to me. She lays a hand on my shoulder as she steps around to stand in front of me, her voice low and soothing, “I know this is hard for you but… trust me.”

“I don’t even know you,” my mouth responds without my permission.

“I know, but… Brittany did. And she trusted me. I need you to, too.”

I nod slowly because something inside me does trust her, something deep down recognises her, and Artie, and makes it easier for me to believe them even though I have no memory of them. And they’re so open and trusting of me, it makes it easier to give that back to them. “Okay,” I tell her.

Quinn smiles, and then she leads Artie and me down the hall and into one of the rooms in of the house. Like the rest of the house, it feels warm in here, like someone wraps a warm wool blanket over my shoulders as soon as I enter. There’s a plush couch that Quinn drops into with a happy sigh, Artie rolling over to sit near her. There’s a big window on one wall, and furniture all over. Shelves filled with books and candles and knickknacks, comfy chairs and the couch, a coffee table, a piano, and shelves on the walls; but it makes it feel lived in, not crowded.

There’s a faux brick fireplace that catches my attention, and while Artie and Quinn talk quietly I make my way over to it, intrigued.

The mantle is covered in picture frames of all different sizes and colours. My eyes start at one end and inspect each one, making my way across.

There’s a big one on the far left, inside it a picture of what must be Santana’s whole family. There are about twelve people in the photograph, but I can only pick out her and a toddler-sized Ruby in her arms. She looks older than the picture Artie showed me, from when we were in high school, but she still looks really good. Both her and her daughter are wearing beaming smiles.

Next to that _is_ the photo Artie showed me, the glee club I don’t remember crowded around a first place Sectionals trophy I don’t remember winning. I pick out Santana, Quinn, Artie and myself in the picture. It’s eerie, looking at the image of me when I don’t remember the picture being taken. It’s like I’m looking at a picture of a twin I never knew I had; she looks just like me, but she isn’t me.

After that is a picture of Santana and a brunette woman – same as the one in the glee picture – half hugging and facing the camera. Its night at the time of the picture, and there are lots of blurry people in the background. It’s also snowing, and there are bright lights behind them.

Something flashes inside my head. I know this. I was there. I… the top right corner of the picture is pink, someone’s finger caught on the lens. My finger. I was there. I took this picture. I don’t remember what it is, where me and Santana and the other woman are, but I know I took this picture.

My eyes linger a few seconds longer, but when nothing else comes I move on to the next one. In the centre of the mantle is a tiny framed picture of Ruby when she was a baby, wrapped in a pink and purple quilt. She’s probably only a few days old in the picture, with smooth and chubby tanned skin and a full head of dark hair.

That picture is sitting in front of a larger framed one, of Santana and Ruby together. They’re lying in a pile of autumn-coloured leaves, heads together, looking up and grinning at the camera. They look so similar here, and I take a long moment to take everything about their faces in. How much they look alike, and how different they are. The biggest thing is the eyes, they both have the same soft, dark eyes.

My eyes slide to the right and I jump back, not expecting a picture of myself. It's of the side of my face and shoulders; I’m looking at something away from the camera. I look older than I do in the glee picture, but my memory doesn’t throw anything at me of when this picture was taken. There’s a simple smile on my lips, like I’m looking at something but unaware my picture is being taken. It stirs something inside me, that she has a picture of me on her mantle. I left her five years ago but she still has a picture of me.

There’s two pictures left. One is a family portrait, but not of Santana and Ruby. Quinn. Quinn is in the picture, along with the tall, Asian man in the glee club picture and a toddler with big brown eyes and dark hair. Quinn’s family. I didn’t realise she was married, she never mentioned that. I had no idea she was going back and forth across the California-Arizona border to see me while she had her own family to be with.

I would contemplate that longer, but the final picture on the mantle catches my attention so sharply the air is knocked right out of me. It’s of Santana and me.

It’s a wedding photo.


	14. Santana

The back door slams shut and Santana looks up to see her daughter leap across the back deck and onto the grass, throwing herself into the mass of tiny bodies running around laughing and screaming. Santana’s brother is somewhere in the mix; the kids ganged up and somehow managed to get him down. Now they’re climbing all over him.

She’s sitting off to the side of the yard, next to her sister-in-law, supervising the fun. Ruby invited some of her friends from her kindergarten class and from her mini-me soccer team over for the afternoon, and Santana promised their parents that they’d be returned without injuries.

“I can’t believe you’re related to that man,” Kathy says idly.

“I can’t believe you’re _married_ to that man,” Santana quips back. Who in their right mind would marry her brother?

“Oh, it was only for the money,” she laughs, “No love involved.”

“Good to know.”

They continue to watch as Carlos tries to lift himself from the grass, reaching an arm into the air as if pleading to God for assistance as tiny bodies pull and tug on every square inch of him. There aren’t that many children there, but all the moving limbs make it look like there could be enough to fill an elementary classroom, all shrieking with high pitched laughter.

Ruby pulls herself out of the tangle of bodies and runs over to Santana, sticking her tongue out and panting like a dog.

“Ruby,” is all Santana says. Her tone is enough to get her point across.

“I’m the tiger,” the little girl insists. “I’m Queen of the Jungle and have to save everyone from evil Uncle Carlos the Dinosaur. I have to act the part.” She sticks her tongue out further and gives a loud pant.

Santana’s lips pinch and she shakes her head. Her daughter is an odd one.

“Yeah, Santana,” Kathy says, looking at Santana with a pinched expression, trying very hard not to show how amused she is, “She has to act the part.” Before Santana can respond, her daughter speaks up again, “Ben ate a mouthful of dirt. He’s the mole.”

Ben is Kathy’s son.

Kathy slowly closes her eyes and exhales in the way only mothers can.

“Was there something you wanted, mija?” Santana asks, taking a sip of her lemonade.

Ruby gives her puppy-eyes so she hands the drink over. Her daughter’s sticky hands greedily grab the glass and she slurps up a big gulp. “Sour,” she says as she hands the glass back.

She smiles, “It’s made from lemons, baby, they’re sour.”

Ruby nods, as if committing this to memory. “Aunt Quinn is here!” she suddenly bursts with her outside voice. “She’s inside with the wheeley man and some blonde lady. I thought they were the clown but they weren’t. Okay bye.” Then she runs off, leaps, and latches her arms around her kneeling uncle’s unsuspecting neck while growling madly.

Santana turns to her sister-in-law and opens her mouth, but Kathy beats her to it. “I’ll make sure no one draws any blood, you go inside and see.”

Santana smiles her thanks and makes her way inside, wondering why Quinn’s here. She, Mike, and their spawn are supposed to come by tomorrow, for Ruby’s actual birthday.

She’s also wondering why Quinn brought Artie along and who ‘some blonde lady’ is. If Artie has a new girl why is he bringing her here? And why is Quinn bringing Artie here in the first place, doesn’t she have her own husband and small child to drag around? She hasn’t even seen Artie since right after Ruby was born, why is he here now?

She finds them in the front room of the house. Quinn is sitting on the couch, legs crossed and foot tapping nervously. Artie is sitting in front of her in his wheelchair, and the other woman is standing by the fireplace, her back to Santana as she looks at the pictures. “Hey, Quinn, what’re you…?”

As she speaks her eyes slide from Quinn to Artie to the stranger and then stall, unable to return to Quinn to finish her sentence. She’s unable to finish her thought. The happy smile that was on her face when she entered the room falls away. Everything around her falls away.

This isn’t just one of those moments she has sometimes, where she’s in the grocery store or the mall or the gas station and sees a flash of blonde hair that pulls on her heart strings. They used to happen more before, but they’re less frequent now. But this isn’t one of those moments. This isn’t one of those moments where her eyes try to follow the blonde while her muscles clench and her breath catches for a moment as her mind plays a trick on her, filling in what she isn’t seeing but wishes she was.

This isn’t like that.

She knows that body, even from behind. The colour of her hair, the shape of her shoulders, the curve of her back and her long, toned legs. She recognises the easy posture, the round of her hips, the tips of her dangling fingers.

Her breath doesn’t leave her in one big whoosh, leaving her stranded without air. It’s more like it slowly slides away, thinning and thinning until there’s nothing more for her to take in. She doesn’t feel cold, or too hot. She doesn’t feel dizzy or like she might pass out. She just feels.

Santana feels the way her heart thumps against her ribs as the woman turns. Feels her throat swallow, thick and slow, as the woman’s eyes take in what she sees. Feels the blood rush through her veins as the realisation shows on the woman’s face. Feels her tongue go limp and heavy in her mouth as blue eyes connect with hers. Feels the long-missed tingle in her fingers as they try to reach out for what they haven’t held for so long.

Brittany blinks, eyes flicking up and down over Santana, a soft smile on her lips. Her eyes show hesitation, almost fear, but her mouth holds a smile that reaches forward and pulls at Santana’s chest, reaching for her heart inside her body. Not a hard or painful jerk that tries to rip her heart from inside her, just a familiar tug that reminds Santana’s heart who it belongs to, in case it forgot.

Brittany doesn’t speak, she waits. Her lips aren’t pressed in a hard line, her body isn’t tense or uncomfortable. She simply waits for Santana to do or say something first.

Santana’s a little busy taking in a sight she was afraid she’d never see again to speak, though. She blinks a few times, lets out a small breath through her nose, and tries to return the small smile.

“Santana?”

It isn’t Brittany’s voice that breaks the silence that had blanketed them, it's Artie’s.

Santana’s lips part, but all she can do is breathe. Her whole body feels like jello, as if the slightest touch could distort everything. She tries to speak, but no words come out.

Brittany takes pity on her, looking at Santana carefully before speaking. “Hi.”

One word. One word and the illusion falls away. One word and the thick mist that had surrounded them turns into a chilling wind, whipping right down into the deepest part of her bones.

Her voice is still the same, the same sound, the same movements of her lips, the same words Santana’s used to hearing. But that’s all that’s the same.

Santana staggers backwards a step, startled. That one word feels like ice clawing across her face in the world’s most terrifying hailstorm.

Somehow Artie’s moved behind her, because she takes another step back and she bumps into the side of his chair. Her hand reaches out, clasping onto his chair handle, not only to keep her balance, but to ground her. Artie is familiar. Artie isn’t a stranger. She knows Artie, he still feels and looks and sounds the same. Artie is safe. 

Her mind is telling her that Brittany isn’t safe.

“What…?” she tries, but that’s the only word that will come out. She can’t come up with any others to say to express her distress.

Artie’s hand lifts to cover her own on his chair. She squeezes his chair handle harder, as if he can feel it and she were trying to communicate everything to him. She doesn’t understand what’s happening. She doesn’t understand why she doesn’t recognise the woman before her.

“Take a deep breath,” Artie insists lowly, his voice gentle and assuring.

Santana obeys, gasping in a short breath and holding it inside her lungs.

His hand moves on top of hers to sooth her, his arm at an awkward angle. “Now breathe out, Santana.”

Again she obeys. She finds she can’t do anything more.

Quinn’s moved forward by now, standing partly between Santana and Brittany. Her back is to Brittany, her hazel eyes are fixed on Santana, watching and calculating and willing to react no matter what Santana does. If she lunges, if she falls, if she flees, Quinn is watching her and ready.

“Santana, it’s okay,” Quinn says slowly.

Santana’s eyes only stay on Quinn’s for a moment before looking past her at Brittany. Brittany, who seems to sense the distress coating the room like too-thick icing. Santana watches as Brittany’s lip gives a little tremble before her frown sets in and her shoulder’s sag ever-so-slightly.

“I’m sorry,” Brittany breathes out, her voice a whisper.

The words rush against Santana like a wave and she takes a step to the side, away from Artie and breaking his contact with her. Quinn’s moving though. She steps forward, placing her hand against Santana’s other arm. Santana wants to, but doesn’t try to shake Quinn off. Her body is too fixated on Brittany to do anything more.

“What’s wrong with her?” she whispers to Quinn, the hysterics she’s trying to hold down seeping into her words.

Santana finds herself not listening for Quinn’s response, but watching Brittany’s instead. Brittany’s face falls further and she blinks wetly a few times. She doesn’t fully step back, away from what’s going on, but she leans away, clearly hurt by Santana’s words. She looks so apologetic and broken it makes Santana ache inside; Brittany should never look so hopeless when looking at her.

Quinn squeezes her arm tightly, “San, do you want to sit down while we explain?”

“No,” she says, watching Brittany intently. Brittany, who looks like everything her heart remembers but feels so much like a stranger that it hurts.

Artie swings into her vision, positioning himself closer to Brittany now, seemingly to offer her comfort while Quinn steadies Santana.

Quinn’s grip moves from her arm to press against her back, keeping her calm as she rubs small circles and begins to explain.

“She was in an accident, Santana.”

“Oh,” is all she can say. Her eyes haven’t left Brittany.

Santana has pictured this happening before, Brittany coming home. She’s dreamt and wished and begged and prayed for this moment, so many times and in so many ways that they all began to blur together into a heavy lump of longing in her heart. A lump that, as time went on, was less painful to carry, but was there nonetheless.

But never before has Santana pictured seeing Brittany again like this, when her body recognises her but every intuitive sense inside her is telling her that this isn’t Brittany.

She doesn’t question Quinn, only waits. Waits, eyes never leaving Brittany, hoping Quinn will lead her through this.

“Santana, she was hit by a car.”

Santana’s eyes pull away from Brittany for a moment, glancing at Quinn and Artie to make sure she’s heard properly before landing back on Brittany again, who gives a tiny nod, confirming what Quinn’s said.

“She lost her memory.”

Her legs wobble slightly, the room swaying a little bit around her; Quinn presses her hand harder against her back. She doesn’t feel nauseous, doesn’t feel dizzy, she is simply aware that everything is moving around her in ways they shouldn’t.

“Quinn,” she whispers. The room is feeling too thick and heavy around her. She can feel the heat radiating off Quinn’s hand against her back, off her body standing so close to hers. Her touch begins to burn, becoming unbearable.

Santana needs a moment.

Quinn has known her long enough that she doesn’t need words to understand what Santana’s asking her. Her eyes studying Santana’s face for a moment, searching, questioning that she’ll be okay.

“Please,” Santana breathes out, low and so only Quinn can hear.

Quinn’s eyes leave hers and move to study Brittany and Santana holds her breath. Quinn is asking Brittany’s permission. She’s checking to make sure Brittany will be okay if she’s left alone with Santana.

Santana doesn’t understand any of this.

“Artie,” Quinn says softly, “Why don’t we give them a minute alone.” It isn’t a question, she isn’t leaving room for anything but Artie’s compliance.

Santana watches, mystified, as Artie doesn’t look to her to make sure she’ll be alright. She watches as he looks up at Brittany, just like Quinn did, to make sure she’s okay with being left alone.

“It’s alright,” Brittany says softly, giving Artie’s shoulder an encouraging squeeze. She looks nervous, but she smiles.

Artie sits still a moment longer, probably debating what would happen if he chose not to listen to Quinn, before nodding to himself and following Quinn from the room.

A heavy silence settles over them, Brittany smiling hesitantly at her, Santana trying her hardest to keep her lip from trembling. Everything inside her feels terrified, unsure of what’s about to happen. 

“I hit my head really hard,” Brittany says, and it takes Santana a second to realise she’s continuing with Quinn’s story of what happened to her. “I lost all my memories. I didn’t know who I was; my name, where I lived. I couldn’t remember anything.”

“Why,” she croaks out thickly, frustrated her voice is betraying her, showing Brittany how hurt and confused she is. She wants to try and push it all down and be strong, but she’s been strong for so long now.

“Why what?” Brittany asks patiently when Santana doesn’t go on, her voice sweet and soft as ever.

“Why… if you couldn’t remember,” the words leave her heavy and fractured. “Why couldn’t you…”

“Come back?” Brittany asks and Santana nods her head a bit too eagerly, willing Brittany to answer. “I didn’t have any identification with me. I didn’t know my own name, but I had nothing to remind me of it either. If I had had a bag or a wallet or a phone, they would have…”

They would have called Santana.

“When?”

“Five years ago. The accident was in Santa Clarita, that’s the hospital I was in.”

Santana tries to swallow the growing lump in her throat, “Quinn told you…”

“She explained what she could, yeah. That we… we had some sort of argument…”

Some sort of argument. Quinn didn’t tell Brittany why they were arguing, that Brittany didn’t like Santana trekking across the state when she was eight months pregnant for something work related that involved her staying in a hotel for a week.

“She,” Brittany continues, her voice gentle, “said you didn’t… no one knew if I…”

“Don’t.” She doesn’t need to hear Brittany confirm it. If she was in Santa Clarita, then the bus ticket wasn’t a dud, Brittany had been going after her to apologise. She just got lost in between. She didn’t leave her.

Brittany didn’t leave her. Santana smiles and gives a fluttering breath, “It doesn’t matter.”

“I’m sorry I-”

She cuts Brittany off again, tripping over her words in her haste, “N-no, no, it isn’t your fault.”

It doesn’t matter how or why she disappeared, it doesn’t matter that Santana’s spent five long years with a dancer-shaped hole in her heart. Brittany is here, with her now. That’s all that matters. She’s found her again.

The smile on Brittany’s lips, first nervous and unsure, shifts to a shy one. Not uncomfortable, simply tiny and happy.

Santana finds herself smiling in response, laughing through a sob as a few tears run down her cheeks. Brittany’s back. She may not remember, but she’s back and that’s all Santana needs. It doesn’t matter if Brittany doesn’t remember her, she remembers Brittany. She remembers everything there is to remember about Brittany. Santana can do it for both of them, and she can help Brittany build new memories.

“I don’t know you anymore,” she explains, and Santana feels her heart clench because _no_. Brittany can’t be thinking that’s it, that’s all there is, that she’s gone and seen Santana and now she’s leaving again to go live the life she built for herself after the accident.

“I don’t know you at all. But,” the but catches Santana before she can say anything, her mind trying to calm her heart. She stays rooted to the spot, listening as Brittany finishes. “I… there’s still something there, you know?” Santana finds herself nodding along with Brittany’s words, treasuring them because she hasn’t heard Brittany speak in so, so long. “Part of me knows you, even if I don’t remember you. It’s like… my mind doesn’t know you, but my heart…” Her voice changes suddenly, from low and apologetic to suddenly insistent, “Do you sing?”

“What?” She half asks, half laughs, not expecting the question.

“Do you sing?” Brittany repeats, like this is the single most important thing in the world for her.

“I… yes.”

And Brittany smiles, wide and bright. Santana has no idea what caused it, but God, how she’s missed that smile.


	15. Never Let Me Go

I’m in the middle of trying to explain to Santana that even though I don’t know her, something inside me recognises her, knows her and feels her and remembers her place inside me, inside my heart. But as I’m speaking suddenly something clicks, something more important than explaining myself, something so important I need her answer right away.

“Do you sing?” I ask, the words bubbling from my lips before I can even think to hold them back.

Santana looks taken back by the question, clearly not expecting it. “What?” she asks, face squishing up in confusion.

“Do you sing?”

“I… yes.”

She’s the voice.

She’s the voice that’s been inside my head, singing and soothing and always there. I know it, there’s no question. It’s her voice that has always been on the tip of my consciousness, her voice that draws me into my dreams. It’s her voice that I’ve been able to remember when I’d forgotten everything else.

I must be smiling really big, because Santana’s giving me a confused look. “What does singing have to do with anything?” she asks softly.

“It’s nothing, it… it’s just something I remembered.”

Santana frowns, not understanding.

“It… when I woke up in the hospital, I could hear this voice singing in my head. I couldn’t remember whose voice it was, or what they were singing, but I knew it was important.”

Her lips part, forming a small ‘o’ of realisation. Then she pulls her bottom lip into her mouth, trying to hold back a smile. She looks so innocent and sweet, like she’s trying desperately hard not to let me know how happy those few words have made her.

It melts my heart a little bit. This must be so difficult for her, seeing me after so long, but she’s trying so hard to hold herself back. I can see the love written so clearly on her face, but she’s holding back for my benefit.

Eventually, she lets the moment pass. Santana clears her throat and shakes her head a little bit before asking, “Where have you… been living?”

“In Phoenix. After the hospital… that’s where I ended up.”

“And you’re…” she’s trying desperately hard to stay formal, but I can see her hands clenched into fists at her sides, “doing okay for yourself?”

I smile, “Yeah. I have a job, it’s fun. And I have a few friends. And a cat.”

The laughter that bursts from inside her takes me by surprise. It’s beautiful, light and airy and musical despite the fact that she was crying moments ago. I quirk my eyebrows at her and she shakes her head, wearing a _of course you do_ expression.

“What about you?” I ask, feeling kind of compelled. She asked to make sure I was okay, I should do the same for her. The whole conversation feels both forced and breathlessly easy at the same time, like talking with someone you haven’t seen in a long time yet you’ve known all your life, it feels hesitant but natural.

She shrugs and gestures around the room. “This,” she answers. “After Ruby was born, the apartment… I needed something new. Bigger, for her. But new, too.”

“When was she…?” My unfinished question hangs between us as I suddenly remember the balloons outside and the little girl in her white tights. My words sting my throat, like a swarm of unhappy bees.

I can feel my eyes widen in realisation.

Santana doesn’t look upset, simply… regretful. “Yeah,” she breathes out. “I… I was eight months pregnant when you…”

No.

No, please tell me that that isn’t true. Please tell me I didn’t disappear right before her daughter was born. Please tell me I didn’t do that to her. Artie said she broke apart after I disappeared, but this… this brings that to a whole new level. She was about to have a baby. She was about to have a baby and her wife vanished? That wouldn’t have just broken her, it must have shattered her beyond repair.

It’s so horrible. It’s so cruel and horrible, how did she even make it through that? Her wife leaving right before she gave birth? The stinging inside me intensifies, focusing right behind my eyes. I was responsible for that, for making her give birth to and raise her baby alone. I left her, even if I didn’t mean to, I left her, right before she was about to have–

Oh.

“She…” The stinging is replaced by ice. It feels like there’s ice forming behind my eyes, sharp and painfully cold. “She…” I stare at Santana, trying to understand. “We…”

Ruby isn’t just Santana’s daughter, she’s…

Santana bites her lip and looks down for a long moment before meeting my eyes. Giving me an apologetic look, she whispers, “Yeah.”

Ruby was supposed to be mine, mine and Santana’s. She was supposed to be our daughter. Ours.

And I disappeared. I left Santana alone. I didn’t just shatter her heart. I ripped it apart.

“Brittany,” Santana says softly, taking a slight step closer to me and then stopping. I watch her fingers twitch, like she wants to lay a hand on my arm to comfort me, but she holds herself back. “It’s okay.”

“No.” No, she can’t say that. It can’t be okay. It couldn’t have _been_ okay. I did this to her. I destroyed her whole life by not coming home.

“Brittany, it wasn’t your fault. You were hit by a car, I don’t… I don’t blame you for not coming back, for forgetting.”

“You must have hated me,” I whisper, the realisation setting in.

“No!” she insists, shaking her head sharply. Her voice doesn’t waver as she answers, “No, I… I was confused. I was hurt and confused and emotional, but I never… You didn’t leave. Everyone else, they… they didn’t know what to think. Everyone had their own idea about what happened to you. But I knew you didn’t leave me. You wouldn’t, not like that. I knew you couldn’t do that, not to me. I didn’t understand what happened, how you disappeared, but I never hated you.”

“I’m so sorry.” I don’t even have the right words to tell her how sorry I am. “I’m so sorry I left you alone to raise her.”

She gives me a sheepish smile. “Don’t be. It was hard at first but… she’s the best thing in my life.”

“Why Ruby?” I ask.

She bites down on her lip and looks away, mumbling something.

“What?”

Her eyes close momentarily as she sighs, readying herself. Then they open, warm and soft as they meet my gaze. Everything about her is soft, her eyes, her voice, the way she stands. How can she still be so soft, after years of being left alone to grow hard?

“My… my due date was Valentine’s. You,” she pauses, watching my reaction to her words. “You wanted a name that had to do with Valentine’s Day. We debated over a few, names that meant love or things like that. But Ruby was your favourite; red, like a Valentine’s colour.

“We never agreed on it, but you always came back to that one, even though I wasn’t sure.” She looks away again, unable to hold my gaze. She speaks to the photos on the fireplace, blinking rapidly, “When she was born… there was no other name for her. You… you were gone, but I couldn’t name her anything else. Don’t…” she looks hesitant, whispering the words. “Don’t be mad.”

“Mad?”

I’m not really sure what I’m feeling at this point– confused, hurt, apologetic, frustrated, heartbroken – but mad is definitely not it.

“Quinn said it was a bad idea, to hold on to you like that. No one knew if you’d gotten hurt or le-” she chokes a little on the word, “or left me, but she was still yours. Even if you weren’t there, she was a part of you, and I couldn’t name her anything else.”

“I’m not mad at you,” I say softly, my words hardly there at all.

She looks at me with hope in her eyes.

“I’m mad that I did this to you. Even if I can’t remember you or why I left or how I got hurt, I still feel horrible for doing this to you, but I’m not mad that you… that you named her that.”

She nods, and I can see her tears threatening to fall again. “I’m just glad you’re okay, Brittany.” She takes a nervous step closer to me, like I’m a doe in a forest that she so desperately wants to reach out and touch.

“Brittany?”

Santana freezes, her eyes growing wide and her whole body tensing. Fear. Her whole expression has morphed into one of pure fear. I shift to the right, looking over her shoulder. I give an anxious smile as I make eye-contact with Ruby, who’s hanging in the doorway with a questioning look on her face. Her ribbon is gone from her hair and she’s worrying her lip between her teeth.

Santana turns abruptly, her shoulder brushing mine. She gives her daughter a surprised but sharp look, “Ruby.”

The little girl, who looks so, so much like her mother, lets her gaze move from me to Santana. “You… you said Brittany.” She has an innocent curiosity on her face, big brown eyes looking up at her mother and waiting for an explanation.

_“_ _Sal fuera, mija,”_ Santana replies, and it throws me for a moment until I realise that the words aren’t in English. _“_ _Tus amigos te están esperando.”_

Ruby takes a small step into the room, looking nervously between me and her mother. _“_ _Pero mamá, la has llamado Brittany.”_

_“_ _Sal de la habitación, Ruby_ ,” Santana says, her words quick and sharp. “ _Los adultos tienen que hablar. Por favor, tienes que salir fuera.”_

The little girl pouts and then juts her chin out defiantly, not doing whatever Santana’s telling her to. _“Pero…”_ She looks at me, switching back to words I can understand, “She called you Brittany.”

“Yes,” I reply slowly, unsure what she’s getting at.

Santana turns and glares at me, the force of her look is so strong it makes me take a small step back. Her eyes were so soft a moment ago. I don’t know exactly what I’ve done wrong, but I know that agreeing to Ruby’s statement has upset Santana somehow.

“Are you her?” Ruby asks me.

Before I can respond, Santana cuts in, _“_ _Ahora no, mija.”_

Ruby opens her mouth to protest, but Quinn appears in the doorway behind Ruby and lays a hand on her shoulder, stopping her words; I can feel Santana sag in relief next to me. Quinn silently assesses the situation. First, she looks down at the little girl, who is trembling slightly under her touch, eyes still moving back and forth between me and her mother. Then Quinn looks up at Santana and me, studying us; my confused expression and Santana’s hard one.

“Ruby, honey,” Quinn says, tender and sweet, as if she’s afraid her words themselves might break everyone in the room. “You left your friends. Why don’t we go back outside?”

“No,” she says, voice small. “I don’t understand.”

“Ruby, baby, please,” Santana whispers, begging her daughter to let it go and leave with Quinn.

It happens so fast I hardly have time to react. One moment Ruby is standing with Quinn in the doorway, the next she’s across the room, wrapping her small arms around my legs in a tight hug and pressing her face into my body.

Quinn doesn’t move. Santana gives a tearful gasp.

After a moment my hands move to rub up and down Ruby’s arms, tugging a little until she lets go. Then I crouch down in front of her, holding her tiny hands in mine.

“You went away,” she whispers, so softly I’m sure I’m the only one who hears her. Her fingers cling to mine.

“I got lost,” I tell her, my voice just as quietly. I can’t look away from her, I can’t look up at Quinn or Santana, afraid of what I’ll see. My eyes stay locked on hers, watching her brown eyes grow wide and wet.

Ruby gives a tiny little nod before rising up on her toes and leaning forward, throwing her arms around my neck and squeezing tightly. My hands lift, one wrapping tightly around her small frame and one rubbing her back.

“It made Mamá really sad,” she whispers.

“I know,” I say gingerly, speaking into her hair.

Her arms grip around my neck tighter, “Are you back to stay?” Her words are soft and spoken into my neck.

I’m not expecting the tight clench that grips at my heart with her words. It knocks the breath out of me a little bit, hearing her honest plea for me to stay, to make her mother happy again. I stare at the wall by Quinn’s knees, forcing myself not to look up at the other two women in the room.

“I… I don’t know,” I whisper to her honestly, my voice weak. I can feel tears pricking behind my eyes and I swallow thickly, trying to force them back.

Her body gives a tiny little shake in my arms, because this isn’t the answer she wants to hear. But she squeezes me tighter once more, burrowing her body into me for another long second before pulling away. Her eyes look so much older than her five years. I can see her childlike innocence but I can also see wisdom someone so small shouldn’t be expected to hold.

“Okay,” she whispers, accepting the truth of my answer. She leans forward once more, brushing a sweet kiss against my cheek. Then she pulls away and turns, walking towards Quinn and taking her hand to be led from the room.

I stay rooted to the spot, still crouching on the floor. My heart is doing little jumps and twirls inside my chest, unsure how to feel about what just happened.

“Brittany,” Santana says softly from behind me, and after a second I feel hesitant fingers touch my shoulder.

It feels like the whole world does a backflip the second her fingers touch me. I can feel gooseflesh rise up all over me and my lips part slightly as I revel in the sensation. I wasn’t expecting her touch to affect me like that.

“Brittany?” I can hear the worry in her voice.

I stand on shaky legs, slowly turning to face her.

“What…” her voice wavers weakly with her words, “What did she say to you?”

I shake my head and give her a shy smile. “Secret,” I tell her. Those words from Ruby, so fragile, were for me and me alone.

She swallows and gives a defeated little sigh. “I… I’m sorry… about that… about… her…”

Why does she keep apologising to me? Why is she sorry for what’s going on, for being emotional, for naming her daughter the name I wanted, for her daughter being confused by my being here after being gone for so long? Why is she the one looking for forgiveness?

It doesn’t make sense to me, how she can be the one to have her heart shattered but she’s begging me to forgive her for what’s happening now. She looks so helpless and nervous, a tiny bird folding in on herself, too scared to take flight. She looks small and cracked, like she really is afraid I’m going to throw everything she’s feeling back in her face as the final breaking blow.

Why is she the one apologising?

I’m the one who disappeared from her life without a trace.

“Don’t be,” I tell her honestly. “I… I needed that. _She_ needed that.” Santana gives a little whimper, and suddenly I wonder what it looked like for her. Seeing her daughter and… and… me, when I was supposed to be her other mother, having such an intimate moment, something so tender and fragile when we’ve never met before. “And I think you needed that, too.”

She needed to know her daughter forgave me for leaving. And she needed to know her daughter forgave her for not knowing what happened to me.

She gives another whimper and tries to force it into a laugh, but her face crumbles. Her breath hitches as she tries to force everything back, but she can’t. The tears fall anyway, no matter how hard she fights them.

“Don’t cry,” I beg softly, stepping close to her and wiping her cheek with my thumb. I can’t watch her cry, it will only pull me under too.

I can feel her body tremble at my touch and she leans in subconsciously, until she’s sinking into my arms, folding into my skin. Her body, her tears and her strength and her fears, it at all bleeds into me, melting until my arms are the only things holding her up. She cries, heavy and hard like she hasn’t let herself cry like this in a long time, and my arms hold her.

A few tears run down my cheeks, but this isn’t about me. This is about her, needing a release for everything, all her pain and confusion, that have been swirling around inside her without a way to drain.

“It’s okay,” I tell her, hugging her body closer. “I’ve got you.”

It scares me a little, how perfectly her body fits into mine. And how easily my body welcomes hers, like it knows she’s it’s other half even if my mind isn’t sure. A fire runs through me everywhere she touches, but the fire doesn’t burn, it pulses with life. My body welcomes her touch, remembering her and begging her not to let go.

She breathes an airy sigh, tucking herself further into my skin as her tears subside. Her arms are wrapped tightly around my waist, fingers clawing at my shirt, brushing the skin of the small of my back. Her chest and hips fit perfectly with mine. Her head is bowed, snug safety under my chin with her face pressing into my neck.

It doesn’t matter that I can’t remember her. Her touch isn’t unwelcome. I know her, even if I can’t remember her. And that’s enough.

“Brittany.” I can feel the word as she speaks against my skin, feel it travel along and spread out over me, wrapping around me, sinking deep inside me.

“I’m here, San.”

I try to hug her closer but she shies back. She stays in my arms, but she leans back and tips her head up to look at me. “You’re here now,” she repeats, voice raw and hardly there at all. “You’re here and… God, B, I’m never letting you go again.”

Can I help the tiny, watery-eyed smile that pulls at the corners of my lips? No, not at all. “Okay,” I whisper back.

Her body sinks back into mine again, fitting perfectly.

It’s slow and gentle, her lips brushing mine so lightly, like she’s afraid she’s doing something wrong. My arms hug her closer, pulling her into me and telling her otherwise. Everything about this feels so right inside me. Then she kisses me, really and truly, pushing down every last barrier and exposing all of herself for me to see. Everything about her surrounds me.

She whimpers into my mouth, the sound heady and musical at the same time. It reaches into me, ringing in my ears as she threads herself closer. One hand grips my arm where I hold her around the waist, the other cups my face, her delicate fingers running over the skin of my cheek. She sighs, sounding blissful and content, like she’s finally where she needs to be. The sound floats around me, hangs in the air and encircles me, coaxing my heart to beat faster and faster against my chest. Every sound she makes is musical, a song sung only for something deep inside me, calling me to her.

Her lips press continuously against mine, so soft, until I can’t tell the difference between me and her. Her tongue teases me, gently pressing and swirling against my own, and I think I’m the one that makes the noise, gasping as her taste overtakes me. The taste of her lips, her tongue, washes over me in waves so strong it makes my knees buckle a little and I grip her tighter. She’s so perfect; there are no words to describe the beauty she tastes of.

I pull back for a moment, eyes flickering open as I take a breath of air. Her eyes are shining up at me. God, she’s so beautiful, I think as I pull her back.

Her smell, not just her hair or her skin, but everything about her, smells like heaven; like the beach and the stars and the rain in the spring. She smells more stunning than anything I could ever imagine. My hand slides slowly up her back, feeling each bone of her spine; she arches into the touch. I cup the back of her neck and let my fingers slip into her hair. I tug and thread and pull at the dark strands, tipping her head further back and encouraging her to press even closer to me as I take in how amazing she smells, breathing all of her in.

Everything about her ignites something inside me, a flame running over every inch of me. She’s pressed so close I wonder if she can feel it too, the feeling of my heart pounding so strongly against my ribs, the feeling of the blood coursing through every part of me, the feeling of the heat radiating off of me in waves. She’s doing this to me. She’s waking something inside me that was stuck in slumber.

I can feel her, I can feel her the way I wonder if she can feel me. I can feel her hands, warm and strong and sure where they splay over the skin of my arm and cheek. I can feel the quick pitter-patter dance of her heart, jittery with excitement. I can feel her body sagging into mine, knowing and remembering and trusting I’ll hold her up.

My eyes are closed, but they don’t need to be open to see her beauty. I can feel all of it as she seeps into my skin, her beauty, her familiarity, her love. Behind my eyelids I see swirls of colour, dancing in time with the singing in my ears, moving in time to the beat of our hearts.

Her kiss ignites a fire inside of me, waking something I never knew existed. Every part of her paints itself across my skin, teasing me and filling my senses with only her. She sets off a spark inside me, that’s the only way to describe it. She’s set off the spark and now it’s blooming into fireworks, radiant and stunning colours and shapes and sounds of things long forgotten.

Her voice hums against my lips as she pulls me tighter, smiling as she breaks the kiss and rests our foreheads together. I’m ducking down, and she’s on her toes, but we fit perfectly together.

“Hi,” I whisper.

“Hey,” she says back, voice soft and full of love.

Her eyes shine with liquid emotions, too many to try and count. Her smile is no longer shy, but full-blown and glowing. Everything about her sings, calling to something inside of me with a voice I didn’t think I’d ever place. She sings, and I answer. With her here, I remember how to answer her song.


End file.
